The World According to Keri

Hello everyone! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Ramadan, etc. etc.

I've been asked about my own Christmas celebrations a few times this year, so I feel I should write it all down in a blog and then reference this page to each subsequent person who asks. So I had a wonderful Christmas weekend - thank you for asking! How was yours? :)

On Sunday night I headed over to Bundang (kind of suburb south of Seoul) to meet up with my friends Kurt and YoonJu and then we, along with 5 of their other friends, drove about 45 minutes further south to 'Ji-San' ski resort for a night of skiing.

Pretty fun way to spend Christmas Eve actually. There were heaps of people skiing when we arrived, but the 'day' ski pass soon expired and there were significantly less of us 'night' ski pass kids. So we hit the slopes from midnight until the place shut down at 4am. We attempted to be some of the last on the hills by hanging around on the top of one of the mountains for a while and enjoying the view before liesurely making our way down. I also made everyone very happy by throwing on my Santa hat and pulling goodies out of my red bag while we sat at one of the wooden tables near a fireplace. 'Goodies' included red wine, Bailey's, hot chocolate, and a tin of Christmas cookies. I aim to please! (The last couple of runs down the slopes were a little wobbly)

To save on costs, we headed back home directly after skiing (don't worry Mommy, the drivers were sober) and I got to my place in Chuncheon around 9:15am and proceded to crash. Slept for a few hours, then headed to my friend Liz's place for a wonderful Christmas dinner. I'm very grateful to have her place to go to during the holidays. Liz is a wonderful cook who loves to be a host for the holidays. There were 6 of us westerners dining together on chicken (no turkey to be found), mashed potatoes, veggies, and some of Liz's famous baking. Deeeelicious. It actually felt pretty Christmas-like: stuffing ourselves sick, chatting away around the table, taking some photos, passing out on the couch/floor, and talking 'back home' talk. Really makes being away from home a little easier.


From left to right: Jon, Liz's friend whose name escapes me now, Garrett, Amanda, me, Liz

Of course, nothing can compare to being back home with family and I miss everyone very much. I'm glad I got to talk to my family though on their Christmas morning and evening (my Christmas late night and early the next morning). I made myself 'present' at each location by calling my Mom at her place first thing in the morning, and subsequently talking to my Dad and waking up Allison and the kids (sorry... just realized I called Chris and Sam kids... guess that's not so accurate anymore) at their place. Then I caught them all again at dinner time at both my Aunt Holly's and my Aunt Sandy's places. So nice to be able to hear everyone's voices including grandparents and aunts and uncles, and to be able to imagine everyone doing the Christmas thing together. I assume I'll be part of it all next year and I'm looking forward to it. :)

So I'm gonna wrap it up now - Ha! Just unintentionally used the same pun my friend Bod used in his Christmas email. Funny.

Happy holidays again everyone, and all the best in 2007!

Oh - and if you have a moment, I highly recommend checking out the "Jon and Amanda" link to the right of this page. They're a young Canadian married couple living here in Chuncheon and have put together a really great site with weekly videos showing what our lives are like here in Korea. Jon's pursuing a career in film, so these videos are really well done.

(you'll need an updated version of QuickTime to view the videos)
Enjoy!