christmas in korea

Whew.  i just feel like I need to take a breath.  this whole week has been so busy with moving in and everything, i'm glad to have a chance to sit down and rest.  let me recap all that has happened the last week.  we moved into our apartment on christmas eve, all 10+ suitcases and all.  our realtor, whose name is Grace Kim, helped us move in and we had probably 10 different men walk through our apartment hooking up gas, setting up the heating, etc.  Christmas morning we were sweetly waken up by the doorbell of another gas guy who wanted to install a pipe. :  )

we then left to meet up with one of peter's coworkers and her boyfriend to go to the chaplain's house for a christmas meal/party.  it was great.  our chaplain's name is (drumroll please) Billy Graham.  He and his wife are extremely warm and welcoming.  It was a nice bite of Americana for two slightly homesick st. louisans.  there was an incredible amount of food: turkey, ham, two different types of mashed potatoes, rolls, green bean casserole, cornbread, carrot casserole, yams, you name it,  it was probably there.  even better was the conversations we had.  i met these two really energetic and fun korean girls who know Chaplain Graham from their church.  They were friends with a guy named Maurice, who is actually from Kenya, but speaks excellent Korean.  He is a seminary student.  Anyway, these two girls were keeping me laughing through the whole night.  One of them, Jinmin speaks English fairly well, while the other (slightly more rambunctious gal) spoke very little english.  Our facial expressions helped us communicate with one another and were often so funny I would be crying with laughter.  

All three of them invited Peter and I to go see a musical in Seoul this coming Saturday and we said "yes"!  I'm looking forward to getting to know them better.  I have a feeling we'll be great friends.