The Giving of Thanks

Thanksgiving has come and gone and we are preparing our home (and our hearts) for the Christmas season.
I want to give Thanksgiving a well deserved moment. It is just as much a holiday as Christmas.
Last year, I didn't get too worked up about missing out on Thanksgiving/Christmas with my family, so I thought this year would be the same. Boy was I wrong.
I woke up and instantly felt a little blue, but I just suppressed it and tried to go about my day. I was thinking we should try to make the day special even though we had to work and no Korean would know that there was any significance to this day whatsoever. So for our special meal we decided to go to Kraze burger. It's a burger joint here that's pretty good. Their motto is "Well-balanced diet with a healthy burger"…. or something like that. They are quite delicious…but not because they're healthy. I don't think they are any healthier than any other burger. mmm… I love their fries.
But back to the point. What do you do when you want to make yourself feel better about something? Well, here in the Morrow house, we had the "bright" idea of thinking about all the negative things that go along with Thanksgiving that we really won't miss. Bad. Idea. The first thing Jason mentions and I'm in tears thinking "Who cares if I'm 23 and married and I still have to sit at the kids table while younger and/or single/unmarried people get to sit with the adults…I wanna be there". Oops, did I just spill my guts about what we don't like about our Thanksgiving back home… ah well. The thought brought me to tears and I ended up in the ladies room at Kraze burger on Thanksgiving 1 hour before I had to go to work.
I have a confession to make, if I happen to be in a bathroom when I cry I can't help but stare in the mirror when I cry and it makes me cry more, but eventually it turns into laughing because I look ridiculous. Does anyone else ever do this?
After the laughing came I really started to think about not being with my family and all the reasons I'm not with them are reasons I must give thanks for. We have an awesome job, we're making enough money to live comfortably and pay off ours student loans quickly. We ALWAYS have a stocked fridge and cupboard. We have a mode of transportation. We have family that loves us and shows it by sending us care packages. We are able to entertain others with our shenanigans of living in S. Korea. We're getting to experience so much. We have a cozy home. The list goes on and on.Even though our Thursday Thanksgiving wasn't all that special, we got together with some friends on Saturday and gave the good ole American Thanksgiving meal our best shot with the supplies we had here (and some goodies sent by my mom--- Thanks mom!). Take a look. I think we did pretty well.
We're ready to be with family, but we're cherishing all of our days here.
I've been busy making Christmas decorations…I'll post pictures soon. :-)

Geon Chan San Park and other news...

Today, all the employees of our school were required to go on a hiking trip. When we first heard this news we were slightly perturbed that this trip was mandatory for school, but we weren’t being paid for our time. We didn’t like the idea of giving up one of our precious mornings where we get to be productive  in order to go romp around with other people who probably didn’t want to be there either.

When I woke up this morning I had a strange excitement about the trip.  Even though we had to go to a work related activity I thought it might be fun to see what some of our coworkers are like outside of the classroom. It turns out that the place we went to, called Geon Chan San Park, is reeeeaaallly beautiful in autumn. It reminds me a lot of Kentucky autumns and that filled my heart with joy. It was so wonderful to see such beautiful colors occurring in nature. We had a great time hanging out with other expat couples, too. I’m really glad our boss made us go.

Now, I have a confession. Jason and I have been living in Korea for over 1 year and today was the first time we went to a traditional Korean restaurant. We have been to galbi, Korean barbeque, restaurants and everyday at school last year I ate a Korean cafeteria lunch, but we don’t really eat out much, so when we do we always choose something we’re comfortable with.

The restaurant experience was not one that I will ever forget. I probably won’t go to another traditional restaurant because I don’t think my taste buds are wired to enjoy Korean food. I tried my darndest, but it just wasn’t happening. I was actually a little embarrassed because I’m not usually a picky eater.

In other news, we were asked to be on another radio show, but this time it’s an hour-long segment of us talking about music we like. That should be pretty interesting. I hope we don’t freeze up and say something like “Oh, yeah…that song was good” and end it at that. We’ll let you know where and when you can listen to it if you’re interested!

I hope everything is great on the home front. Let us know what's new in your life :) 

P.S. my friend Amber took all of the pictures for this post...she's awesome.