In the spirit

Merry Christmas everyone!

I am just full of Christmas cheer right now. In about 5 hours I'll be on a plane to Warsaw, all my awesomely Korean family-presents tightly bundled up in my carry-on, my single suitcase light and baggy (did you know that KLM now only allows 20kg of luggage? Not 2 pieces, 20kg each - 20kg altogether. AND - here's the best part - every additional 5kg you choose to bring will cost you a mere 105 euro. I had a little fury fit over that last night).

How do you say Merry Christmas in Korean? Merry Christmas. Trill the r's a bit. Korean Christmas carols are merely American classics sung by Korean pop stars (in both English and Korean). And Christmas day here seems to be all about the cake. Everyone buys cake. Everywhere sells cake. Children only get one present from their parents and that seems to stop around middle school. Lights and decorations are somewhat half-assed.

With any luck I'll arrive in Poland as scheduled (come on Amsterdam, you can pull me through without delays, right?) for a proper Christmas, complete with Polish Nutcracker. I'll take obnoxious mouse dancers over anorexic 5-year-olds anyday.

Dziadek do Orzechow po Koreansku

Too many days have passed since my Korean Nutcracker Experience, so the sting of my critique has cooled substantially. But wow. The party scene had men chugging beer in a sad attempt at humor, while their wives (with the biggest, most butt-like bustles I've EVER seen on ballerinas) twittered around them, taking teensy little steps and worrying like hens. They used children liberally. I got the feeling this ballet was a showcase for the unfortunate little dance students being groomed to be the next ballet super stars (that's a whole nother rant about my Swan Lake experience, where the male and female leads got cheers and catcalls EVERY time they came onstage, a la rock concert). Anyway, because they were kids (and no older than 13), there was wobbling and tripping galore. Then they brought out the nutcracker, pre-transformation into dashing fantasy prince. He was this tiny, tiny, tiny little thing all in red velour. Can 6 year old kids be anorexic? I swear this kid was. And oh, the audience found him so charming. He couldn't hold his own. Drosselmeyer literally carried him everywhere and moved his limbs for him.

And don't get me started about the second act. The national dancers - you know, Russia, Arabia, Spain, etc. appeared at the end of the first scene, and they were styled to be static, mechanical dolls. So they proceed to wobble and fling their unpointed in all directions throughout the entire second act. Including the pas de deux, and the sugarplums.

There was more. Much more I could nitpick. All in all it was a highly enjoyable excursion. No, really, it was great. This rant was more involved than I thought.

The Christmas Spirit is upon us, while I prance around in my Fall jacket and stress over finding the perfect Korean presents for my family.

I should go help Beka was the cookies....

Late Night Musings

I am mesmerized by Korean commercials. They are a blur of white, grey, beige and watery, pasteled-out greens and blues. The edgy ones add a little chrome. And they all have beautiful women. Beautiful Korean women sell everything from powdered sauce mix to widescreen TVs. And the cameras, lets not forget the cameras. Camera and cell phone commercials are to Korea what car commercials are to the States. Lavish and ubiquitous. And they all have extremely annoying jingles, often ripped from well-known English songs. One commercial that I swear plays every half hour if not more blurts out a version os the YMCA that is positively mangled by Korean-commercial-cuteness.

Cute. That's the word of the the nation right there. A national obsession with cuteness. I printed out a Hello Kitty coloring sheet one week, because Kitty was skiing and sledding with her friends and it fit our theme of Winter. My kindergarten girls practically fell over each other trying to get their hands on it. Then all of my afternoon girls saw it on my desk and begged and begged - and even swore they would do their homework - if I gave it to them. When I wear my Tinkerbell necklace I have girls climbing into my lap all day to ooh and ah over it.

The Christmas party went well enough. Heather, a rather masterful baker, created two tarts that tasted incredible. The two of us also threw together a layered chip dip that was a smashing success. And I wore one of my new sweater dresses, this shockingly skintight number - the kind of which I've been picking off the racks in increasing amount. I'm convinced that once I leave this country I'll leave the skinnyness behind too. And all the clothes I've bought here will pile up, musty and unloved because I either can't fit into them anymore or I'd feel too conspicuous in the foreign styles.

Things I'll miss about Korea part 1:

- The rubber-paved, exercise-machine-lined running path by the river.

- School lunches, in all their subtle, super-healthy deliciousness

- The seamless subway system

- The whole "no-tipping" culture. It's so easy!

More to come later! In the meantime....Too much to do. Going to see the Nutcracker with Marina and Beather tomorrow, which will be awesome. And Christmas shopping!

Decembering

Today I finally bought Christmas lights for my room. They're up now, duct-taped haphazardly between walls and ceiling...only spanning about 3 quarters of the space. I now have one dark corner and 3 sparkly, festive ones.

Spent the evening at E-mart with my favorite roommates, whom I will be affectionately calling Beather from now on. That's Beka and Heather for all of you out there who haven't been keeping up. I decided they needed a Hollywood-couple-nickname, since they are attached at the hip and act like an old married couple. This was also their least favorite of the melt-together names I offered them. So Beather it is. I'm hoping it'll spread like wildfire. My diabolical plan will come into fruition at the Christmas party we're throwing this Saturday. After the success of the Thanksgiving party, another one was inevitable (and in high demand, if I do say so myself). Though it was not without its fair share of roommate-related drama.

The clouds have parted and the sky is ice-blue over here in Korea. I feel miles better than I did two weeks ago, nevermind that the wind has been trying to bite off my ears and cut through my Michigan-winter puff of a coat. Korean weather is as bipolar as my moods over the past 5 months, only a touch more predictable. One week dips just below freezing, the next hovers inches above it, like clockwork. The winter puff and the Fall trench are both within arm's reach, ready to be switched out at the first sign of a quiver in the atmosphere.

I've been spending my time becoming slowly addicted to the Dongdaemun shopping district, specifically the Migliore mall. Ah, Korean shopping, Takes a lot of getting used to, but once it gets its claws in you - and you realize that you don't really need to try things on because you're new wardrobe will be made up exclusively of baggy sweaters, short skirts and leggings - it's hard to stay away. Yes, I'll take that one and...oh, 40,000 won is a bit steep, watch the saleslady demolish it by 15,000 won and suddenly I've got another sweater.

Ah Korea. The love and hate continue to wrestle. Lucky for you I happen to be in a loving mood on this cold winter night.

Rabbit, Rabbit

Today I loved my kids. Today I look forward to seeing them tomorrow morning.

Now, whenever I write something like this I look back on it during those long periods of blog-update silence (now you will all be able to tell when I'm too depressed to write :) and hate myself for being anything close to happy. But right now it's the damn truth. Leo had this loud, excited "MISS ADRIANA!" for me as I was walking into the building and he was jumping out of the school bus that had arrived on my tail. He bounded up the stairs and held out his hand, demanding a high five. I've always been the one asking for those in this place. Then he did it three more times during the course of the day. THEN he earned himself 3 black marks (I give them out when any of the kids annoy me) and lost a sticker for the day. The poor kid only needed two more stickers to fill out his Chance Tree (they get a prize every time they do), so he ate all of his lunch for the first time so he could still get his present.

Freaking adorable.

Dammit, children. Stop making everything so difficult.

Korea remains Korea, even in the aftermath of a November unlike any other I had ever had the misfortune of crawling through. Highlights include the epic stroll I took with my friend Marina when we tried to go to a bikram yoga class and ended getting lost in Apgujeong, otherwise known as the Manhattan of Seoul. We took pictures of mammoth (I'm not kidding, words will never be able to describe how insanely big they were) King crabs in a tank outside a restaurant there, and admired the lovely flower arrangements outside the string of posh car dealerships that lined the road. Wait - those aren't flowers, they're cabbage. Yes, purple and white cabbage blossoms added splashes of color to the well-groomed bushes. We ended up at Praha Castle - a Czech themed bar that had us both sighing for home.

I also went to an open mic for poets and comedians at a delightful Itaewon hole-in-the-wall, sipped red wine and ate a real Greek salad with real feta cheese, and listened to a round of spoken word entertainment that left me feeling confident enough to go back there tomorrow and read something of my own.

Now I sit writing law school essays I think I may be a little too loopy to be writing right now. Just how serious are these supposed to be tone-wise?

Haha. Loopy Adri.

Thank GOD November is over.