I had heard that Seoul has really dry winters and doesn't snow much, but it turned out to be a white Christmas after all! Luckily I had off from work on Friday for Christmas. On Thursday, I gave out mini candy canes to my students, and they thought they were so cute. Candy canes aren't really easy to find here, so some of my students didn't know what they were. That night, my school had a company Christmas Eve dinner at Castle Praha, a restaurant/bar in Hongdae. It took forever to get there by cab because of the holiday traffic, but it was well worth the trip. The restaurant literally looked like a European castle in Prague. Danny came along too, so he finally got to meet all my fellow teachers. The restaurant was three floors, and I think it even brews its own beer because I saw huge vats on the lower level. Well you could taste the difference, because they had dark German style beer that was much better than Korean Cass or Hite. The food was delicious too. Danny and I shared a roasted acorn squash stuffed with chicken, mushrooms, peppers, almonds, and cheese. I also had a cherry Hawaiian grilled chicken salad that was yummy. We exchanged Secret Santa gifts at the restaurant. I guess everyone sees that I eat tons of snacks at work, because my Secret Santa got me a huge snack basket. I got my Secret Santa a "snake plant," which is indestructible and also my favorite kind of house plant. She is new at my school, so I thought it would be a nice housewarming gift. After dinner, some of us went to a "luxury" norebang (private karaoke rooms). We even sang some Christmas Carols there. We finished after 4am and decided to wait take the first train home at 5:30am. I must mention that Danny was forced to eat a Burger King chicken burger, because nothing else was open at that time and he was hungry. It was probably his first fast food experience in years, and he said it was quite unpleasant.
On Christmas Day, Danny and I went to Westerndom, a large indoor and outdoor shopping mall in Ilsan. There is an IMAX theater there, so we planned to see the movie Avatar in 3D. We had some great Thai food before the movie. Thai isn't that easy to find in Korea, so we were excited to find some new promising ethnic restaurants in Westerndom. After that we had a caramel mocha coffee and toast with sweet cream at a cute cafe with rocking chairs and swings. Avatar in 3D was obviously even better than in 2D, and at this theater the Navi language scenes had English subtitles! When we left the theater, we were surprised to see it had snowed. It was truly a white Christmas! Unfortunately, we had a hard time finding a cab home at that time, so we were out in the cold snow for awhile. When we got home we got to Skype with our families and open Christmas gifts together at the same time. I guess you could call it a virtual Christmas.
On the day after Christmas, we were craving Italian food (I guess because we missed our families' Christmas celebrations back home). So we tried this "Italian fusion" restaurant near our apartment called Orto. It was exactly what I expected...just "eh". The seafood salad had iceberg lettuce and the brick-oven pizza had too much chewy cheese and no sauce. Oh and like all Italian food in Korea, it was served with sweet pickles on the side. Afterwards we saw the movie "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," which was pretty decent.
Since today was another below 20 degree day, we went to the National Museum of Korea. It claims to be the 6th largest museum in the world, but it was much more organized and easier to follow than say the MET or the Natural History Museum, so it only took us about 4 hours. It displayed mostly Korean archaeological and historical artifacts and artwork. But there was some artwork from other asian countries as well. There was TONS of pottery, lots of Buddhas, and a million books in languages we couldn't read (mostly in Chinese). Overall, it was interesting though. After we had Arab cuisine (Jordanian to be exact) at a famed restaurant in Itaewon called Petra. The food was so flavorful and fresh. We had hummus, babaganouj, yogurt dip, pita bread, falafel, and chicken marinated in spices over vegetable couscous. The waitress asked us if we knew what to do with the falafel and she pointed out the couscous on our plate to us as if we couldn't tell it wasn't rice. I guess most Koreans aren't too familiar with middle eastern food.
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