I put the word out on Facebook, asking who was planning to celebrate here in Korea. One reply, from a Torontonian scholar living in Wando. So, we made plans to have Canadian Thanksgiving at Kayla's apartment (Kayla is also a UFV student). I invited my roommate and one of my professors who is British (I don't know what day they celebrate thanksgiving in the UK, or if they even do, but I figured if they did, it would probably be a similar date throughout the commonwealth), as well as Miyuki and Yu, two Japanese exchange students that Irene and I have gotten to know quite well over our studies here.
The day before the big event, Kayla happened to be in Daegu, where this is a Costco. Since western food items are pretty difficult to track down in Korea, she went to look for some ingredients, while I did the same at our local Shinsegae and E-mart. No luck on either end, Costco wasn't stocking any thanksgiving things until the end of the month (presumably for American thanksgiving in my opinion) and neither Shinsegae nor E-mart had anything close (however, I did find, of all things, a Popeye's chicken restaurant in the food court of E-mart).
It wasn't a total failure though, because Kayla stumbled upon some actual cranberries at HomePlus, so she bought them and turned them into homemade cranberry sauce. Mmm!
Finally, the day came, my roommate got sick from the cafeteria (a place I thankfully avoided that day), so he was unable to attend, and Yu had Korean class. However, Miyuki, Jae (from Wando), Irene, Kayla, Kayla's co-teacher, and myself were happily in attendance.
And it was totally worth all the effort and coordination. It was an excellent thanksgiving! I hadn't realized how thankful I am to speak my normal calibre of English, at a normal pace, without having to sacrifice clarity or vocabulary in order to get my meaning across. Speaking with native speakers is awesome!
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We tried to include lots of traditions, including "carving" up the "turkey" and doing the "turkey dance" (? I think I we were trying to fool the non-Canadians into thinking we do the chicken dance at thanksgiving)...
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| The gang's all here :) One of the most memorable thanksgivings ever. |
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| Our feast. Chicken, cranberry sauce, dumplings, and mashed potatoes. |
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| Irene, Miyuki, myself, Kayla's co-teacher, and Jae (Kayla is taking the photo) |
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| After dinner dessert and coffee Miyuki brought a cake! |
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| Kayla's co-teacher, Jae (who's birthday is coming up), Kayla Irene, and Miyuki |
Happy thanksgiving!
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This is unrelated, but I wanted to post it.
This is a picture of my English classroom! I have a giant smart-board in the middle of the room which the kids love to come up and touch (it's a touchscreen). It's INCREDIBLY annoying when they do so; therefore, I must constantly usher them back to their seats. However, it's a nice resource for using powerpoints and videos.
My English teacher co-worker told me she would be taking some photos today, because the principal wanted her to put some photos of my class on the wall (advertising). Here's the awesome poster she made:
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| Er, perhaps I should have proofread it.... |
Then, on my way home from work, I stopped at HomePlus to purchase some milk and see if Tesco Fruit & Fibre (my new favourite brand of cereal: it's got fibre flakes, apples, raisins, almonds, coconut, and banana in it) was on sale.
After shopping, I went to the bank to use their phonebooth-style, English service ATM to deposit some money. In South Korea, you can deposit paper money into the ATM, but instead of using an envelope, a drawer opens up and you put your cash right inside. I put in a few 10,000 notes and a few 5,000 notes. Nothing special, I've done it before. The machine received my money, closed the door, and then whirred a little bit while it counted up my hard-earned pay.
Then, the ATM tells me, "Your transaction has been cancelled. Please take your card and receipt." and then displays this message for me:
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| Do you know what this means? |
In other words, the ATM just ate my money, and it was a big enough "donation" that I cared about getting it back. I didn't know what to do....
Bank ATM's in Korea usually have a telephone located right next to them, so I picked up the phone.... only to find out that there's no keypad, just a bunch of grey buttons and 3 buttons labeled "1, 2, 3" respectively. I dialed "1" and waited to see if I would get lucky. A woman answered the phone, and I asked if she spoke English. She told me to wait a minute while she found someone else, who promptly picked up the phone and helped me with my problem. I was told it would take about 20 minutes for a serviceman to get there, but she asked for my cell-phone number so she could call me when he got there.
So I waited outside of the ATM booth on the street and watched as the bothered lineup of 3 Korean middle-aged women went into the booth, looked confused, and then came back out again, even more annoyed. I wonder what they would have said to me if I was Korean haha.
The same clerk who helped me straighten out the legality of my bank account came downstairs to the ATM (It was 7pm, I thought the bank was closed!) and did some stuff in the ATM booth, then came outside and told me it would be another 5 minutes.
Finally, the serviceman came, repaired the ATM (it turned around like a secret passageway door... pretty cool), and tried to help me put my money back in, but the machine simply wouldn't have it. I took my money back, thanked the man, and then went on my way, happy with the feelings of surpassing this challenge. I broke a Korean ATM today!
Ugh this just reminds me of banking in Italy! Banking in a foreign country is probably the most stressful thing as far as not being able to communicate. I would have been freaking out if the machine took my money!
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