Tidings of comfort and joy!

Merry Christmas all! I hope your day was full of festive cheer and lashings of ginger beer! 

Sorry I didn’t spread the Christmas joy earlier; I’ve been a little under the weather so I was remiss about my blogular duties... I hope that everyone enjoyed their stuffing and roast turkey:) Alas there was no turkey to be found in Jinju so we had to settle for roast eel with a side of silk worm larvae instead… That’s actually a lot nicer than it sounds. The restaurant was a very traditional ‘take off your shoes and sit on the floor’ kind of place but it did have a ye olde Christmas tree next to the wall display of stuffed fish. Which was nice.

In other news, we had a staff night out last week and I had my first taste of Korean drinking culture. Turns out Korean people REALLY like to play drinking games. The local tipple of choice was called 'soju.' It's a kind of pansy vodka. Amazingly, even though we all drank copious amounts of alcohol I managed to get through the night vomit free! I've finally found people that I'm more hardcore than when it comes to drinking.:) We went to a Korean karaoke bar after our boozy dinner and we all got down with our bad selves. I sang 'Last Christmas' by Wham.

We also had our medical exam last week to make sure that we are not riddled with foreign diseases. The whole process was kinda like being on a conveyer belt at a car wash except that instead of being washed, polished and shined we were prodded, poked and drained of our bodily fluids… We were pushed from one room to the next as they measured our height and weight, tested our eyes and ears, x-rayed our bodies, examined our breathing and checked our teeth. Then they put air fresheners around our necks to give us that ‘new car’ smell and sent us on our way. I felt a little violated after, I don’t like strangers pawing at my person…

Other than that last incident I'm liking Korea. I'm finally living in a country where I'm of average height in comparison to those around me so I'm happy. :) Oh, and I've found that being the only female teacher in the school with curly hair and blue eyes has its advantages. It has won me many comparisons to brunette movie stars, including the Amazonian-like Milla Jovovich!

Well, I have no more news of note so I shall slowly disappear......