"DENTER. YOU KNOW LIKE SOMEONE WHO PUTS A DENT IN A CAR. THAT'S THE DENTER."

Where to start, where to start. There have been lots of random goings on since my last post so I guess I'll just go right into it...

Today was our first day back to classes after 9 days off for Christmas, and...it was a SNOW DAY!!!!!!! I think we maybe got 7 inches. One of our co-workers whose been here awhile said he's never seen this much snow in Seoul. Yay!! We only had our kinde classes, and the elementary classes for the afternoon were cancelled. It was an excellent start to the New Year!!! I'm very glad God invented snow days because I think they are some of my favorite days ever.

I guess I should fill ya in on what I did during our Christmas break huh?

• On Dec. 19th we had a Christmas party at school for the kinde kids and their parents. We sort of did a lesson in the classroom to show off their English, decorated bags, decorated a cake, and each class also sang a couple Christmas carols. It all went pretty smoothly, and to top the day off all the kids were dressed in their Halloween costumes. Since our Halloween party was cancelled because of the swine flu back in October they decided to make it a Christmas/wear your Halloween costume party. It was pretty funny to see them all up there singing Christmas carols in witch and spiderman outfits.

• On Christmas Eve day a few of us did a little shopping at COEX Mall. It is this huge, underground maze of a mall. I don't think any of us bought much, as our main purpose for going to the mall was to eat dinner at the Mexican restaurant there. So it was Christmas Eve, and we were a few Americans eating Mexican food in Korea, and it was awesome! After dinner we headed to Myeongdong to check out the shops there, and eventually go to the midnight mass at the Catholic Cathedral there. Well at 11pm we decided to head to the Cathedral to see if there was any kind of line or anything. Of course there was, and it was a long one. We waited outside for about an hour, and missed getting into the Cathedral by probably 200ish people. So they shuffled us into an auditorium that had a big screen set up to watch the service. It was still pretty cool to experience midnight mass even though it was all in Korean. We did get a shoutout at the end of the homily when he said, "I would like to extend a welcome to our foreign friends. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!"

• We got up early on the 25th to go skiiing/snowboarding at Vivaldi Park. It was so much fun!!! I was a little nervous that I might have forgotten how to snowboard, but it all came back when I strapped in. It felt so awesome to be back on the snow. I really can't describe it. I love snowboarding so much, and besides being with family, I couldn't have asked for a better way to celebrate Christmas. Emily tried out skiing for the first time, and did pretty well. It was fun trying to help her learn to ski by pulling from the few things I could remember from my one ski lesson last year. As long as your remember pizza and french fries your good right? As this is Korea, the place was pretty packed, but actually not as bad as I was expecting. On one of the harder runs I had the whole thing to myself for a couple runs. Ahhhh. No way to put into words how exhilarating, yet peaceful that is. I wish I could do that everyday. After we got back later that night we headed over to a friend's apartment for a "white elephant" gift exchange. I got some candles that I'm super happy about. Now I have something to combat that smell that creeps out of my bathroom every once and a while. Refer to earlier post if you don't understand what I'm talking about. I was also pretty proud of the gift I thought to bring...a huge package of toilet paper and some beef jerky. The person who got that should count themselves pretty lucky.

• Emily and I spent the rest of the week doing some touristy things in Seoul. We visited:

~Namdaemun Market- bunch of different shops selling a bunch of different, random things, such as, ginseng, tea, hats, socks, coats, food, etc.

~Cheonggyecheon Stream-stream through Seoul, it was paved over after the Korean War, but now its a really pretty stream to walk along with lights and such

~National Museum of Korean- I think it's the biggest museum in Asia, that's what I heard at least, had some cool exhibits, lots of pottery, some Buddha statues

~Deoksugung Palace- not as big as the first palace I visited but pretty cool none the less, built in the 1500's, some buildings were added on in the late 1800's and were made to look like western arcitucture so it was neat to see that mix, its neat to see these old palaces surrounded by new skyscrapers

~Seoul Plaza- right outside the palace area, some exhibits were set up there, Seoul is the World Design Capital for 2010 so they had a cool display, and there was a cool display about the Korean Base in Antarctica, that stuff was really cool to see, however, I was pretty freezing and reading about people living in Antarctica just made me feel even colder

• For New Year's Emily and I headed into Seoul to check out the festivities near Insadong. There were tons and tons of people there, as well as tons and tons of cops everywhere. They closed the street down and had a stage where some people performed. I think there was a pretty famous K-Pop Group. We recognized the song but didn't catch the groups name. The teenage boys around us were pretty excited though so we think they might have been a big deal. They had a countdown, then rang a bell 33 times while some drum group was performing. Then people started shooting off Roman candle fireworks everywhere. We bought some from a guy on the street and joined in on the fun. It was pretty crazy. Fireworks everywhere. A sight to see for sure!

All in all it was a pretty darn good break. I missed being with family, but it was really nice to have a good group here to celebrate the holidays with. I hope everyone had a good Christmas, and here's to 2010!!!! Make it a good one!!!! Talk to ya later.