Sunday, November 29, 2009

Day 346/347...Thanksgiving meetup

Saturday November 28
Sunday November 29

This weekend the travel and culture group was having a Thanksgiving dinner and overnight stay in a pension meetup. We each paid 45,000 won (about $45). Our organizer rented 3 units for us. The pension(log cabin) was called "The Jazz Pension". Each unit had a musical name. We rented "The Saxophone" (36 people), "The Piano" (15 people) and "the violin" (9 people). There were 60 of us on the RSVP list. Mostly expats and a few Koreans. The owner of the pension was a musician for 30years. He played saxophone. Then he started running the pension.

I didn't take any pictures at the event.

There was a cooking team who cooked all the food. We had all sorts of things. We got turkey and ham and some side dishes from the army base. We had turkey, ham, gravy, mashed potatoes, 7 layer salad, mac and cheese, green been casserole, stuffing, pumpkin pie, apple crisp, etc.

We arrived at the pension at various times. Getting to the pension was an adventure especially when trying to coordinate times and meet someone who isn't familiar with the subway line! (This is why I do most of my travel alone! I am very familiar with subway lines and have my routes all planned out) She called me the day before and we decided to meet at 2:20 pm at a station where line 6 and line 1 meet. Then we were going to ride together for the last hour of the journey and catch the bus to the pension. The bus was leaving at 3:40. I got to the station early about 2:10. She called me right after I got there and told me she had just left her station. She got to our meetup place at 3pm. Then I hopped on the train. She told me she got lost getting to her station. I told her we weren't going to make the bus time. We had 3 stops to get to another transfer. When we got to the transfer it was very confusing. Line 1 is the most confusing line to transfer from. It took us a while to figure out where we needed to be. We finally found the right side. The line we got on was a slower route. We rode about 6 stops and then I heard the message "this is the last stop". So we had to get out and transfer to another train going in the same direction. silly. We finally made it around 4:15 pm. When we got to the station we met another foreigner who was going to the meetup. She called the organizer and he came to pick us up.

We ate dinner around 6pm I'd say. The food was great! Big portions. Everyone was stuffing their face.haha. There was a lot of food and a lot of leftovers. People would go back to the food for snacks later on in the day.

There were a lot of things going on. There was a piano in our unit so there was a guy playing piano. He was really good and played a ton of songs. Sometimes there would be a group sitting around the piano singing. There was also a guy with a guitar. There were people making smores outside. I chose to stay inside where it was warm. People were playing board games and card games. Someone had an ipod hooked up to speakers providing all sorts of music.

The owner played a few songs for us on his saxophone. Everyone enjoyed that.

One of the men brought along his son. I'd say maybe 2-3 years old. Everyone thought the kid was so adorable. He was so cute. He was our entertainment at times. He was counting in Korean at one time then all of a sudden he says "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7" in English. Everyone clapped for him. We were surprised to hear a child so little speaking in English.

We found out that there was a noraebang in our unit. (a karaoke room). A few people went over there. I didn't sing, but I listened to everyone else. We stayed in there till around midnight till they kicked us out.

People started to go to bed around different times. I stayed up with the night owls till around 3:15am. There were about 10 of us awake at that time. Then we all finally called it a night. I stayed in the small unit with girls. There were 8 of us in there. OMG it was as hot as an oven. I could barely sleep. It felt like an oven. We had all 3 windows in the room open and that didn't help one bit. I started out sleeping on the floor. There was room for about 3 people on the floor and 2 people in the bed. There was one girl on the bed but she got up during the night. I couldnt sleep so I decided to get on the bed because I thought it would be cooler because the windows above the bed were open. nope windows did not help. So it was hot and I was sleeping on the bed which wasn't too much better than sleeping on the floor. There were 2 girls on the floor. I didn't hardly get any sleep. I can't sleep if its too hot. I kept tossing and turning. I finally got out of bed around 9:45 and got dressed and met up with everyone else.

A lot of people were eating leftovers for breakfast but I didnt get anything. Some people got cabs and left around 10 am. The rest of us stayed for the 12:30pm bus. I had a good time. It was good to celebrate with others.

Then we all headed home. We met another group of foreigners at the subway station who were at our same pension. One of the girls was completly hammered. We were all being entertained by her.

I had to take a nap at home. I probably slept for about 2 hours. I'd set my alarm for 30 mins, then 10, then 10, then 20, then 10. haha.

One of my dreams was totally out of character. I was looking at this map thing that had places of interest. It spun around like a globe. While I was looking at it some people came up behind me and looked too. I was finished with that side so I turned it and they wouldnt let me turn it and they were mad. I was yelling at them and telling them I had to do a school project and I needed to look at it. They still wouldn't let me look at it. So I stormed off and as I was leaving I yelled "I hope you burn in Hell" OMG!

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