Dreaming of a White Christmas

I've been really bad about posting lately, but I have plenty more to say, so new posts are forthcoming. First of all, I sort of skipped right over Christmas and New Year's Ever. In America, that would be really missing out on a lot, but here in South Korea, those holidays aren't celebrated much. There wasn't any exciting buildup, no decorations or parties, and not much to say about it in general.

Of course, the foreigners tend to make up for that by having their own parties, so Sandy, Sam, Courtney, Melinde and I had a Christmas party for ourselves. It was very cute, including a Christmas Eve dinner, a sleep-over, present exchanging, and lots of laughs. I didn't take any pictures, though, except the following of us eating our Christmas Morning breakfast.

After that, I had a very busy weekend visiting my friend and co-worker, the school nurse Yu Jung-im. She is Protestant, but when I told her about my desire to attend a Catholic Mass, she very kindly arranged for me to attend with a friend of hers and her friend's daughter. Both of them were very friendly and we all ate lunch together afterward. I was really glad to attend Mass. I noticed that the women keep up the old-fashioned tradition of wearing veils, but otherwise, it was pretty recognizable. We even sang carols in Korean.

There are a few pictures of the rest of the weekend, so I'll post the rest under the cut. Just click to read more.

Yeongcheong's sole Christmas decoration. :(
It's pretty, but I really missed all the lights and festive mood of the holidays back home.

 Part of our Christmas party involved holiday coffee!

After lunch, I went bowling with Mrs. Yu's friends from her church. I'm a pretty poor bowler, so it was cool when I bowled my best game ever. It's really hard to read, but it says 105. Wow.

Me bowling. Behind me to my left is Mrs. Yu giving me a pointer.

Mrs. Yu's house. She lives in an apartment building, but it's quite big. There are at least 6 rooms. Very nice for a Korean home. There is a couch not shown in the picture, but we often sat on the floor as well.

 I stayed in this room. Presumably her son's old room. Mrs Yu has a daughter who lives in Singapore and a son in the army. However, her niece currently lives with them, so it's not quite an empty nest yet.

I think it's interesting how even the closet doors give away the fact that this house is not in America. Sometimes it's the subtle differences that get you.

It snowed that weekend, so I got a white "Christmas." Sort of. It really only snowed in Daegu, where Mrs. Yu lives, not Yeongcheon, but it was cool anyway. Made it feel a little more like home/the holidays.