Well, we had a really good Thanksgiving on Saturday. We went to a friend of a friends apartment who is Korean-American. There was a mix of Americans, Canadians, and Koreans there including his aunts who made a bunch of Korean food to go with the American Thanksgiving food.

It was pretty good. The funniest thing was that everyone only has toaster ovens, so there were multiple tiny dishes of casseroles instead of one large one. We brought tomatoes stuffed with mozzarella cheese and drizzled with balsamic vinegar, chocolate chip cookies, and a huge jug of sangria. It was really fun. It was nice to just sit around with multiple English speakers and talk. I think everyone was afraid that there wouldn't be enough food, so we had all brought entirely too much. We also played the game catchphrase to mix it up a little. We found out towards the end of the night that it was the host, Brian's Korean Aunt's 60th birthday, so we established one of the cakes as a birthday cake and had her blow out some candles. I was really afraid when first coming to Korea that the major holidays would be sad and depressing for me. I found that you can have a "family" atmosphere wherever you go. This might have been one of my favorite Thanksgivings yet!

The next day Brendan and I went Christmas shopping around some of the big market streets. The day started out very productively until we got lost and couldn't find the last market that we were looking for. Then it ended up with two tired and slightly grumpy people eating a shrimp avocado burger at Lotteria (like Korean Burger King.)

I'm still not healthy. I have a terrible cough that causes everyone on the subway to run away from me. At least sometimes I get a little room to myself. I went back to the doctor today and got some antibiotics so hopefully that will help.

After my father mentioned the lack of people in my pictures i went back to take a look at them. I don't know how I managed to get 3 pictures without any people in them. There is usually a crush of people and absolutely no personal space here. My photos are very decieving. I always kind of laugh to myself when I'm on the subway. Just think of a hundred little black haired heads smushed together with my blonde one sticking up in the middle.

I have 21 days of vacation that I can use throughout the year, and I had been planning to use 10 or 11 when we go to the Philippines in February. The stipulation with our vacation days is that we must use them during student breaks (end of December, month of January and month of February, Month on July.) I found out of Friday that we will only have time for one week of vacation in July (5 working days) so I have to use up the rest of my vacation days in during the winter break. That amounts to 16 working days of vacation. On top of that, some of the days that I requested off were already holidays so, surprise! I now have a bunch of vacation time coming up. From December 24 to January 3, January 27 to 31, and February 13 to 28. I have no idea what to do with my time but i'm considering a ski trip, a train trip to southern Korea, a second trip to another part of The Philippines, or possibly another country. It all depends on airfare costs.