That's right, the scourge of the fourteenth century has once again made a reappearance in my life, and this time I can't blame it on the mosquitoes (they finally seem to have died out, thank God). I could maybe blame it on my land (slum) lady seeing as I STILL don't have heat...but whatever, I'll take the high road. This time.
So the plague came and is still lingering, but I managed to dispell most of it before Christmas. Which was pretty good, if I don't say so myself...
On the 24th we had Christmas parties all day at school, some were sanctioned by the administration, others not so much. But in my opinion they should never again organize a Christmas party, so whatever. The events THEY planned involved five and six year olds watching a play in which a witch abducts seven children and forces their mother to cut off her own feet before returning them. Our party involved soccer and relay races. Now who do you think the more qualified party-planners are? Ya, that's right.
After school all of the foreign teachers headed back to Caitlin's apartment where we all pitched in and made Christmas dinner. My contribution was, of course, my sparkling personality and the ability to eat more than all of the other teachers combined. Well that and washing the dishes, but who's keeping score?
It was a great night that can essentially be summarized in five words: food, wine, Konglish and belly dancing.
Christmas morning found the boys on a plane bound for Thailand and Caitlin and I opening the stockings (ie: stuffed rugby socks) that we had made for each other, along with all the gifts that Caitlin's family had sent over to her. We than had a lovely Western-style breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast and then headed into Seoul for our hotel stay.
The Grand Hyatt Seoul will forever remain near and dear to my heart. From the bathtub to the bed, the heat and the most amazing breakfast I've ever had, the Hyatt gave me everything I had ever dreamt of and more. Cue cheesy romantic tune now...
After we checked in to the hotel we headed into Itaewon to make a visit to the "Evil Pie Man"--a pastry chef from Maine who makes the most amazing pies. We each picked up a personal-sized pie (pumpkin for me, butter tart for Caitlin) which we promptly ate as soon as we made it back to the hotel.
On Friday we headed out to find Seoul Tower and, after about an hour aimlessly wondering around the forest looking for the trail that leads to the tower, we caught a cab and drove part of the way there. It was a good thing too, seeing as we had been going in the complete opposite direction of where we had needed to go. I could hear Andrea in my head the whole time: "Jacquie, you need to ORIENT the map. Orient the map, Jacquie". Sigh.
Anyway, we did make it to the tower and we even managed to find a spot on the fence for our locks. Tradition has it that if you and your significant other place your locks together on the fence surrounding Seoul Tower and throw the keys over the side of the mountain, then you'll be together forever. As much as Caitlin and I secretly hope to become crazy cat ladies together, we put our locks on the fence facing the Hyatt more for the sake of remembrance than anything else. That and the fact that we were feeling a little left out by all the cuddly smooching couples wearing matching outfits that were surrounding us. But whatever.
And now it's Saturday, December 27th. Christmas has come and gone and so has our stay at the nicest hotel in Seoul. I'm sitting in my apartment, sipping coffee with about five layers of clothing on, already missing the comfort of the hotel and contemplating heading to Caitlin's for the night to steal some of her heat. It was a nice Christmas, although unconventional. There were a lot of changes this year that took some getting used to. I'm thankful that I had Caitlin beside me and a family on the other end of the phone full of happiness and cheerful messages. I'm sorry that I didn't get to talk to everyone--I hope you all had a lovely holiday and thanks for all the well-wishes!
I promise that I'll update more often over the holidays--we have a week and a bit left before we have to go back to work and Caitlin and I are going to try and keep busy. We finally bought a few travel guides on India so a lot of our time will be spent planning the next trip! No doubt the anticipation is going to be what pulls us through to March!
1 comment:
Ya...I'm not going to deny it, I'm a bit of geography bitch : ) However, if we never got lost, we would have never seen the Royal Pharmacy in Madrid...so there you have it : )
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