Another Thanksgiving in Korea

This year, I am thankful for how easy it is to celebrate Thanksgiving in Korea. We did, roughly, the same thing as last year, so we got to celebrate the holiday twice with different groups of friends.

28 pound monster turkey!

On Friday night, we went to Max and Serena's house for their wonderful Thanksgiving celebration. They made a ham and a 28 pound turkey! It was massive, and they sent everyone home with leftovers. I made an apple crisp (with real Quaker oats that I brought back from home this summer) and two loaves of pumpkin bread. Serena bought me the pumpkin spice and canned pumpkin for the recipe on base, which was really nice of her. The recipe was huge, and this was the first time I had ever made it. I think it turned out really well. This year, Lily and Jonathan, two of our teacher friends who we don't see often, also came to Serena and Max's. Serena and Lily know each other from their running group. It was really nice to be able to see them as well. Everyone brought side dishes, and they were all really good, especially Deb's cornbread casserole!





On Sunday, our teacher friends ordered the turkey from the English magazine, The Daegu Compass, like last year. This time though, we had the dinner at Marie and Ben's new apartment since it's also a bigger place. Marie is a fantastic cook and baker. Everyone brought the side dishes to go along with the turkey. Again, our friends are amazing chefs. I brought some corn bread muffins and a pumpkin pie I bought from Costco. There were about 14 of us at their place, and it was really nice to catch up with people we don't always see.

I'd say Thanksgiving was successful again. Even though we don't get the day off from work, at least we can celebrate it with friends.


The Monday after Thanksgiving, a bunch of our friends (Marie, Ben, Thomas, Sian, Maria, Matthew, Gianni, and I) got together and went to one of the photo studios downtown. There are a ton in the main subway station, and I always see teenagers down there crowding around. Big groups of friends will go down there and get their photos taken together. We decided to celebrate December 1st by doing the same. We all got in our best Christmas outfits and took some Christmas pictures together. They take a bunch of pictures for like 10 minutes or so, and then you can pick which ones you want. $7 per person gets you one picture, but we chose 3, which ended up costing about $17 per person. They also edit the pictures for you to make you basically look flawless. I can say that I know why all the celebrities are talking about not wanting their pictures photo-shopped; it feels awful to have it done to you! I watched my legs and butt go from big to small as she edited, and it feels really judgey. That was the only bad part of the experience. I know they just wanted to make the pictures good, but the editor was pointing out all my flaws and correcting them. It felt weird. Some of you have probably seen the one I posted on facebook already, but there are two others I'm keeping secret for a Christmas card. They are really cute pictures, and I didn't have any pictures of the 8 of us together, so it's nice to have that now.