Thanksgiving in Korea

Since all of us foreigners are so far from home for the holidays we needed to band together and make as much holiday spirit as we could. We all worked on Thanksgiving since it is a Thursday and it is not a holiday here in Korea. So the Sunday before we all went to Liz's house and made our own Thanksgiving pot luck feast which was also a going-away party for Willow. Maggie and I went to Liz's a few hours early to help get the ball rolling. I think I had as much fun in the kitchen beforehand as I did at the party.Of course, the boys were watching sports while we cooked, some things are universal! With the help of a package mailed from the States by my helpful dad, I had everything I needed to make Pumpkin Chiffon Pie. I just can't have a Thanksgiving without it.
It went over very well. Thanks for teaching me how to make it Mom! By the time we got everything served we had so much food it was ridiculous.
And we were worried that we would not have enough. First Thanksgiving lesson learned... We had most of the staples, homemade cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, corn, bread, pie, the only thing we did not have was a turkey, we replaced it with chicken instead.
It is really hard to make a turkey with only toaster ovens! The food was really good. I was really quite impressed with us. For many of us this was the first Thanksgiving away from our families and we pulled it out well. Liz took her DJ duties very seriously so we had some good tunes as well.
We ended up with tons of people and food and wine. So really a lot like a Thanksgiving at home, just having a makeshift family instead of our real ones. But we make do and I think it might actually end up with less fights this way. Hahaha. Check out Norbert enjoying his food.
Frances had a dog at the time named Sparks. They were having some bonding time to keep her from going for the food hard core. So cute...
We had about 25 people in Liz's apartment so we had to grab a seat anywhere we could, Liz and Sean were enjoying their food.
Willow was actually leaving on Thanksgiving Day so we were happy to have her at our party. I miss her, but she will be back before too long. Aren't we cute?
Bryan and Norbert were enjoying some Ginseng Wine, something I have only had here in Korea. It is decent but I still prefer a nice Bordeaux. It just isn't a holiday without some wine.
Because of the aforementioned oven issues, Coenraad went old school and cooked two if the chickens outside on a little charcoal grill. They were really good. We teased him about his African upbringing that he felt the need to make fire outside to cook the meat.
Aww...Sean and Willow couple picture! They are sooo cute. I know he misses her, but the GS Mart appreciates the spike in beer sales.
And little Sparks, getting in the middle of everyone to get all the love.
We had a great Thanksgiving. It felt like a real holiday which made me really happy since I am far from my family. I was worried that holidays on the other side of the world would be weird. But so far so good. Hopefully Christmas will be just as good.

A Bunch of Strangers Go See Billy Joel

So here is the crazy background story of my trip to the Billy Joel concert:
There once was a girl. Her name was Lori, see her below in the picture with her letter to Billy telling all about this crazy adventure.Lori really liked Billy Joel and she found out that there was going to be a concert in Seoul. So she asked all her friends to go but none of them were interested. Now Lori was a smart child of the 21st century so she decided to use Facebook to find some friends to go with her to the Billy Joel concert. Here are some of those crazy new friends below at T.G.I. Friday's before the show.
But how you ask, did she find these new friends? She used the Facebook search to look for people who lived in South Korea and had Billy Joel listed in their favorite music. This may be the most successful Facebook stalking story ever told! She sent these stalkees messages explaining about the concert and asking who wanted to go. 12 brave souls replied. And before they knew it, they all went to the Billy Joel concert together.
They were all enjoying the concert very much, but they had nosebleed seats, and even with the 10x optical zoom camera, this is the closest picture they could get. So four Americans (of course) decided they wanted to be closer. So they rushed down to the stage. But alas, there was a cheap plastic barrier to get onto the main floor, guarded by ushers. The ushers rebuffed the Americans. But the Americans were sneaky and knew what they wanted. So they pretended to be sad and go back to their seats. Once the trusting ushers turned their backs (Koreans are BIG rule followers), the Americans jumped the cheap plastic barrier and made for the stage.They got very, very close to Billy Joel, about 5th row back standing at the foot of the stage.. And this made them very happy because Billy Joel is very cool. Soon the rule-following ushers struck again. They tried to break up the happy little crowd at the foot of the stage. The Koreans obediently started shuffling quickly and quietly back to their seats. But the Americans started leaving only slowly and reluctantly. When the very cool Billy Joel saw what was happening to his fans, he stopped midsong. He was very angry about this dispersement of his avid followers. So he yelled at the ushers, "Hey, what the f@!k?"Immediately the Americans rushed back to the stage and now they were in the first and second row at the bottom of the stage. And the four Americans were even happier than before! The Billy Joel concert was amazing, all should hope to be so cool at that point in their lives. The Americans were very happy because Billy Joel touched their hands and sang all their favorite songs. One of the Americans even got a great video of part of Billy Joel singing Pianoman but was thwarted by Blogger not uploading it. It can be seen on the aforementioned Facebook page.
After the concert ended, the newly minted friends had so much energy, they decided they must go to the Noiribang and sing Billy Joel songs late into the night.

So that is just what they did. And there was much joy and singing throughout the land. All because the magic of Billy Joel brought them together.Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and the new friends sadly parted in the spirit of Billy Joel, promising to keep in touch through the thing that had brought them all together: The Facebook.
But the adventure was not over for our two young adventurers from Cheongju. They needed sustenance and a place to lay their weary heads for they did not live in Seoul. So after some searching they found a jinjibang.
Jinjibangs are Korean spas which offer many great things like saunas, whirlpools of many temperatures, steamrooms, and scrubbing stations. One enters these naked so they are separated by gender. But there is a common room with a TV, computers, a snack bar, human kilns and sleeping mats where all can come together. Weary travellers such as ours can sleep there, in the jinjibang pajamas which look like prison uniforms. It is quite inexpensive as well between $4-$10 depending on the jinjibang, much cheaper than a motel.
So the two weary travellers slept a good and cheap sleep at the jinjibang, a first for them both. Then the next morning they recharged themselves with Belgian waffles, fruit and gelato. And they were happy!

The End

Halloween Nights

Being in South Korea, they are concious of the concept of Halloween, but it is not celebrated. Except in the Westerener bars. So it makes getting costume stuff a bit difficult. I thought I would go with the culture and do a little school girl outfit. Sure enough, I found everything I was wearing in normal clothing shops here. My friend Sueji was going as a vampire, so I volunteered to be her victim. She, Liz and I got ready on Friday at her house. We had almost as much fun there as out at the bar. Check out my costume:
After we were all ready we headed out to the Halloween party at MJ, one of the foreigner bars down town. My friend Danny managed to find a Scream mask somewhere, this picture is so creepy.
Here is a close up on me and Sueji, she was a very sexy vampire. I did her makeup and she ended up winning second place in the costume contest. I guess those Theatre Makeup classes in college were good for something after all. That's Sueji's bite on my neck.
My friend Mike won 1st place in the costume contest, he made his costume. I was totally impressed, I never knew he was so creative.
I loved Liz's costume too, she was so pretty. I dubbed her the Acid Angel, because her makeup was so trippy.
Here is Sueji, Simon and Leanne. I think Simon was a zombie, his mask is on the back of his head. Leanne was really creepy though, I almost did not recognize her. She was dead. The white thing she is wearing is what they traditionally bury Koreans in. Creepy!

Norbert ended up singing with the band. Of course, he didn't do anything about his costume until the day of so he wore his bathrobe and managed to find this long orange wig somewhere and stuck Maggie's birthday tiara on top.

Jonathan's band, Papa Bear played as well. I am not even sure how he managed it, but all the sudden Jonathan was hanging from the ceiling. Priceless moment. Talk about stage presence!

So that was the end of the pictures I have from Friday, the actual night of Halloween. But this is Korea, and they party hard here, so there was another Halloween party at Road King on Saturday. Anyone who knows me knows I love Halloween, so I was all for getting all the mileage out of it that I could. So on Saturday, we got ready all over again. Since I had been Sueji's victim the night before, obviously now I had been turned and was a vampire myself. We are making out own little nest, check us out:

So we took our creepy selves out to the bowling alley first so we could get the most out of scaring the Koreans. It was mostly very funny but I felt a little bad for this one little kid, who was like 3 and kept hiding behind her mom whenever she saw us. Liz, the zombie, gets ready to eat the pins.
Here are the girls in our second round of costumes, Sueji and I in the back, vamp squad, and Liz and Maggie in the front representing the zombie contingent. Apparently Sueji is our pimp daddy as well, judging from the picture.

After the bowling alley we headed out to Road King for more Halloween festivities. I had to take a picture with this girl, she was a creepy little doll. Considering the limitations of what you can find here for Halloween, people got really creative.

This was one of my favorites, Brittany, K-Fed and one of their babies. It is always fun to mock pop culture.

Jeong Hwa was not quite ready to jump on the Halloween train with all the crazy westerners, but she certainly enjoyed laughing at us. She isn't the only one, we got stopped on the street when Koreans asked to take pictures with us. You can actually see my fangs pretty well in this pic.
Norbert had the same costume the second night as he did the first but by the time this picture was taken, he had lost it somewhere along the way. Check out the Sapporo can, tiniest beers ever. They were really cute.
So that was the Halloween craziness. I love Halloween! And it was real nice here cause it wasn't really that cold yet. Definitely no snow like we often get in Michigan. I had a great time and so did everyone else. I have more pictures on my facebook if you want more. And we wonder why the Koreans think we are strange...