Surprise Mail ...

Dear Aunt Jean,

This is a special post just for you since you are our #1 blog reader.

We received a very nice surprise in the mail this evening. It seems to have taken it's time getting here - almost two months from the date it was post marked! But like you said in your card, the Christmas cake tastes better with age! I let Milton open it since he receives less mail than I do and boy did he go at that tape with lots of eagerness and anticipation! He tore right through all the wrapping and served himself a large slice of cake and then a second slice before I had even finished reading the card! No time for photos or anything which would have enhanced this blog entry ;)

He doesn't want to share with the Koreans - he doesn't think they will appreciate it enough. We will however have some of our friends visiting this weekend and I'm sure they will enjoy the Canadian treat with us. Thanks for thinking of us and for going to the trouble of sending it all the way to Korea. We hope you had a great Christmas and new year!

We celebrated Christmas again this year with our close friends here in Korea. As always when we get together, it was non stop laughs which help us forget how much we miss our families.

We played lots of silly games, like this one in which you must pick up the box with your teeth and not let your hands touch the ground. A real test of flexibility as the box gets smaller and smaller each round!

Me and two others were the winners - once the box was gone, we had to pick up an m&m from the floor - who knew I had such amazing hidden talents?! ; )

New Year's eve was celebrated among friends as well. We had a theme party at our apartment - beauty and the geek - can you guess who went as what?!

We even got some Korean friends to come out, which is extremely difficult to do when they know there will be only foreigners present. This is a teacher from Milton's school Song Ne and his wife, who have become very good friends of ours. They were quite in awe at what goes on at a foreigner's party - all the mingling, and people helping themselves/serving themselves while the hosts do the same. In Korea, there is one boss or head drinker who dictates what and when people eat and drink. Korean celebrations all take place seated around a table whereas at our party (like all western parties!) most people stood in the kitchen and moved from one conversation to another. It was really neat to share our party with them.

The holidays are over and we are now both teaching camps at school for the month of January - camp is the Korean word for summer school, but we are working away on our vacation plans for February - a trip to Laos and Thailand, can't wait!!! Hope you are all surviving the cold, snowy Canadian winter. You aren't alone --we've had more snow in Korea than I thought possible and it's still coming down!