Twas the Week Before Christmas...

The week and weekend before Christmas were pretty low-key but fun. We took the week off from taekwondo because we needed it after practicing everyday for just over a week before our black  belt test. We did a couple of new things and hung out with our friends instead.

Last Tuesday night, we met up with Niall and Tara at a board game cafe we had never been to before. They are friends with the owner, so they go there all the time. Although it has board games, it is more of a cafe, so not the same selection of board games as we usually get. The food there looked amazing though, and I'd love to go back for dinner. I just got a chocolate muffin with ice cream on it. It was huge and delicious for only $4. Our board game cafe doesn't have food or alcohol, so I would definitely go back to this place too. I think it just depends on whether you are more interested in playing a ton of different games or whether you want some dinner and you are happy playing a limited selection of games. This cafe also had a few adorable cats walking around that would steal your seat if you got up to order. Too cute! Niall and Tara taught us to play a game we had never played before called Citadel. It was really fun, and I definitely want to play it again. It was really nice to spend a few hour with Niall and Tara because it has been so long since we'd seen them. It was a really fun night.

On Wednesday night, we did another thing we haven't done in a while: quiz night. Maria, Matthew, Gianni, and I called our team Mr. Plow (Simpsons reference). There was one Christmas round, but the other ones were sex and name the movie from the picture. As usual, it was really fun. Our team ended up tying for first place! To decide which team got first and which got second, Niall and the other quiz-makers decided to have us write down the names of all Santa's reindeer and the items that go along with all 12 days of Christmas in the song. Both teams managed to name all of them, so them we just had to rock, paper, scissor for it. Although we suggested simply splitting all the money in half for each team instead of going for first and second place, because the second place team gets significantly less than the first place one, the other team didn't want to take the offer. Maria is the best at rock, paper, scissors, so she won us first place! It was awesome. We won 133,000 won for the team! Not bad at all. Paid off our Christmas presents this year and our dinner for that night.

Thursday night was the end of year teacher dinner. We went to a really expensive buffet called Ashley at Daegu Tower. It's a Western style buffet where they serve little pieces of cheesecake for dessert that are amazing. The dinner was excellent. The school even did a raffle where some of the teachers could win money. My number was 44 though, so I had double bad luck. In Korea, the number 4, or "sa," is bad luck because "sa" also means "dead" in Chinese. I didn't win any money, but a few of my coteachers did. After dinner, my main coteacher, Sun Mi, wanted to go up to the base of the tower. Even though she's from Daegu, she had never been there before. It's so surprising what people don't do in their own cities. She didn't go up the tower, but even from the base, you can get a nice view of the city. We walked down the path back to the restaurant outside. They decorate it with all kinds of Christmas lights, so it's really pretty. Gianni and I were going to go to taekwondo that night, but the bus took longer than expected to get home with all the traffic. Oh well, too bad. (You can hear how disappointed I was *hahaha*)

Friday night, Gianni and I went with Sian, Thomas, Maria, and Matthew to see The Hobbit. I think the general consensus was that it was way better than the last movie. It still had tons of horrible CGI, but it was more fun. They could easily have put the first 20 minutes of this movie into the last one, and the ending of the last one would have been much better. Anyway, splitting a really short book into 3 movies was insane, but whatever. It's annoying that that's the new Hollywood trend.

The weekend before Christmas was spent baking. I baked both Saturday and Sunday all day, and I barely left the house. On Saturday, I made banana bread muffins, nutella cupcakes, and my mom's Christmas frogs (most people call them haystacks). It feels much more like Christmas for me having those frogs in the house. I divided it all up to give to our coteachers as their Christmas presents, so we didn't eat all of it ourselves. It would have been gross if we had. It was A LOT of baked goods. On Sunday, Maria and Matthew came over to bake with us. Matthew really like anise cookies, and I made them last year, so he wanted more. Matthew made buckeyes (peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate) in the kitchen while I made anise cookies. I made entirely too many anise cookies. I made one batch with a recipe that Auntie Teresa gave us before they came over to the house, but I decided that it wasn't enough, and I wanted to make a different recipe that I had a home to see what the difference in taste was. I can't really tell the difference in the end, and both are really good. But the second recipe I made had 7 cups of flour! That should have been the indicator that it was a huge recipe. It made too many cookies. It was also a lot stickier and harder to roll into balls. I think I'll stick with Auntie Teresa's recipe. Anyway, we sent Maria and Matthew home with lots of cookies, and I had enough to give one to each of my coteacher as well as a whole tray to bring to the taekwondo Christmast party we have tonight (day after Christmas). Gianni gave his coteacher 1 cupcake and 1 muffin each, and I gave mine 2 frogs, 1 anise cookie, and a bookmark I made each. I think they all appreciated the effort I made in baking them. A lot of things in Korea are labeled "handmade," and I think they really appreciate handmade things in Korea. Baking is way more fun than cooking, in my opinion.

The week of Christmas, I just watched The Santa Clause with my kids. They really liked it I think. They were laughing and getting really into it. After this week, there are just three days of class next week, and I really don't feel like actually teaching (and they don't feel like learning). They just informed me that my third grade classes are cancelled for the last 4 days of the semester, which is kind of sad because I like teaching 3rd grade, and the kids are graduating, so I don't get to see them anymore. At least it gives me time to continue planning my travel-themed camp and our vacation to China in January. I need a vacation!