Christmas and Birthday time in SK ...... Week 19

Before I came to Korea - this was the time that I was dreading the most..... I had never been away from my friends and family at Christmas before...... but surprisingly there was no homesickness.... it would have been nice to have been there, and seen all my family...... but I was that busy, there was no time to be sad!!

Christmas Eve

I was at school on Christmas Eve - I taught lessons - but was allowed to spend 20 mins talking about Christmas with my 3rd graders - so that was pretty fun.
Santa (my principal) came round the classes and handed out mini chocolate cakes and fruit juice to everyone........ I missed this......and was that sad, my coteachers called him to come back haha,
I'm such a child.

One of the kids wrote me a Christmas card which was really cute - he is one of my faves haha - not that I have favourites - of course!!

We exchanged presents at school - I got a very nice pink scarf.

Me and my coteacher with our new slippers

I got a nice Christmas card from my coteacher -   Damn those fake men hahahah!

I hope Santa will bring you a real man

After school I went shopping with Nina and April to find some festive clothes and last min Christmas day goodies. On the way a random family stopped me - said Merry Christmas - and gave me a bag of candy. Hahah I know you're not supposed to sweets from strangers.... but hey, it's Christmas!!

We then headed to our local in Chilgok for a few drinks. There was a Korean version of Il Divo singing.....

Of course we decided to be the new group

Then I headed to Aprils to sleepover, ready for Christmas Day!!

Christmas Day

Nearly 30 people came round to Aprils to celebrate Christmas Day together..... I was a little bit worried that the food wouldnt arrive....and that I would ruin everyones Christmas....but the day went ahead without much stress!!

We had a massive Christmas lunch.....I had three plates of food.

We opened presents ....... I started to open a present that wasn't meant to be involved in our 'White Elephant' - I seem to have a habit of opening presents that aren't mine haha!!

We played Charades - there was the standard Christmas cheating - Nina Cheater Jean..... haha guessing 'Being John Malkovich' from NOTHING.

We sang some Christmas songs together....... Fairy tale of New York - Ontro ducccc tionnnnnn.

It was a nice and busy Christmas and I'm glad that we all decided to spend it together.

26th-28th

Now this was the time when I started to feel a bit like 'Well I wish I was in England right now' - because Christmas celebrations and everything just stopped. Suddenly. As if Christmas was over. Hell no. I like to drag this shit out!
I was at work on Boxing Day - I didn't teach - and just spent the day preparing things for Winter Camp - wishing that I was at home, eating leftover Xmas Food and getting drunk.

I went to a High School to practice talking with some of the students and we played a bomb game - I started to act like my elementary kids - and started chanting TNT when we were losing (so that the other teams got a bomb on the game and lost all their points ) - we won in the end - cos we were the coolest haha!!

There were no students at school on Friday - so we went out for lunch - yay!  Then when we got back to the office - my coteachers had bought an Ice Cream Cake for my birthday - so I got to blow out some candles - and was given a really nice hat <3

There was a LOT of snow of Friday - so we were worried that we might not make it downtown on Saturday morning to meet the bus to take us away on our Ski trip - so our original plan was to go to Adams Birthday meal and then to stop at Rogers house.

This is the most snow Daegu has seen in a lonnnng time

 Butttt we couldn't even get a taxi to Roger's house - so we spent a night sleeping in the Jimjibang at Banwoldang.

This is just outside Exit 1 of the Subway station - it was after midnight when we got there - and we had to meet the bus at 5am - so we didn't try any of the spa services - we just wanted to sleep!
It takes me quite a while to fall asleep anyway - unless it's a daytime nap - then I'm straight out - but yeah this was possibly my worst nights sleep in Korea.

I slept on the floor  - without a pad or anything to make it softer - the pillow was not a pillow in my eyes - and people we snorrrring sooooo LOUDLY. But we managed to make it to the coach in time.... so that's all that mattered!

MY BIRTHDAYYYYYY!

I woke up possibly the earliest I ever have on my birthday, minus the actual day of my birth (I was born around 4am) - we made our way to the coach - I was still not 100% awake so was a little bit confused when people were wishing me Happy Birthday. But after a nap on the coach - I was ready to being my Birthday celebrations.

We were given some Soju and chocolates - so we had a Birthday shot on the bus. It was also Winnie and Adams Birthday celebration so we had a shot together <3

For Christmas I was given a voucher for a Snowboarding lesson from Josh - which I am SO HAPPY about - because otherwise I would've picked skiing - and the one time I tried that .... I sucked.

I wasn't a pro boarder ......... but I felt so much better on it!

We were out skiing/ snow boarding until around 10.30 - then we went back - showered (my hair looked like actual death) and gooot ourrr drinnnnnk on.

A large game of I have never - and lots of soju - resulted in me missing the morning Ski - but hey - 2/3 aint bad!

All in all I had a reallllly good Christmas/Birthday time this year so a big thanks to everyone who made it pretty awesome!!

My friends from home also helped a lot....even if we were not together. I appreciate every Christmas / Birthday message that I got ..... it's nice to hear about home.......and of course the Dairy milk and presents brightened up my life haha!!

Luckily I didn't feel like this!!

<3 <3