Christmas Time in Korea

Despite having to spend the Christmas season away from loved ones at home, we ended up having a wonderful time celebrating in Korea. We filled December with Christmas pastimes and managed to squeeze in our Christmas movie watching, music listening, tree decorating, snowflake cutting, and cookie baking. It was definitely a different sort of Christmas, but it was great nevertheless.

Before Christmas, we went with friends to see the Christmas light display in Nampo-dong (a popular shopping district here in Busan).

On Christmas Eve, friends came over to our apartment for a White Elephant Gift Exchange. We loaded our hot cocoa with irish cream and marshmallows and sat down to enjoy the interesting array of presents people brought. We also engaged in a game of "Would You Rather?" and furiously debated questions such as: Would you rather have tinsel for hair or Christmas lights for fingernails?

We also played an experimental game with a double-wrapped present, oven mitts, and dice. The game involved frantic passing and unwrapping, and as you can see, the results didn't turn out very well.

On Christmas Day, we slept in and enjoyed breakfast and presents. Tyler got me a guitar! I helped Tyler purchase his top of the line ping pong paddle that he's been dreaming about. We also unwrapped gifts sent from home. Thank you, parents! Everything was lovely and we have candy to last us months.

In the afternoon, we went to enjoy a Christmas supper with our friends Bobby and Jestine. After that, we met up with Josh, Kalie, Zach, and Sam to see the Nutcracker at the Busan Cinema Center. The high points of the ballet were the pelvic thrusting rats, the break dancing, and the disco ball. We all agreed that the performance was interesting to say the least.

Our Christmas was filled with fun experiences and we're glad that we got to celebrate with such great friends. Tyler and I will never forget our Christmas in Korea.