Christmas Day in Itaewon

When we woke up Christmas morning, it was raining, we looked like this:


and were completely frightened by each other. We decided, though, that it would be a great idea to Skype with our abnormally large extended family at Grandma Shank's house (their Christmas Eve). Naturally, Grandma, being a grandma, doesn't have anything more than a dial up connection. In trying to borrow a neighbors wireless connection, our connection was pretty choppy and with all of the chaos of the evening there it was a pretty hilarious conversation.

Then, we opened our gifts from our mom and dad. They bought us matching pajama sets. Hot, right?
Eventually, we got dressed and made our way to Itaewon. Itaewon is an area of Seoul that surrounds an American military base. If you are going to feel like you're in America in Seoul anywhere, it's Itaewon. There is an American grocery store, English speaking hairdressers, and not a Korean restaurant in sight. The latter made my picky-eater sister very happy!

We went with another teacher, Betsy, who just arrived in Korea about a week before! She teaches at a different school in Dongbaek and all of her fellow teachers were traveling for the break. You will hear a lot about Betsy in the coming posts. My supervisor, Irene, also joined us. We went to Suji's for an American-style brunch. Here's chubs with her bacon and cheese omelette:

Merry Christmas sweaters!

Irene and I are deciding what to order:

After brunch, we shopped around a little, then made our way to Starbucks. Benny made an appearance here, too. Benny the bear (named after Pope Benedict when I was in Italy - and Big Ben when Karen was in London), was a temporary gift from my cousin Madeline before I traveled to Italy in the summer of 2006. She wanted to make sure I took something comforting with me. I took Benny everywhere with me and got many pictures with him in them. When I returned, I made a picture album for Benny (and Maddie). A few weeks later, Karen traveled to England, Wales, and Ireland and did the same thing. It was fitting, of course, that Benny travel with Karen to Asia, as well. Here he is at Starbucks:

As we were walking to the bus stop to head home, we stumbled upon a Santa Claus. There aren't very many of them around here so we grabbed a picture with him (and the Korean man behind the window).

When we got back to Dongbaek, it was SNOWING! Here we are in the snow! Yea! White Christmas!

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and are winding down from all of the holiday happiness.

More from Karen's trip to come...