My family came to visit! It was amazing to have them here after being away for 4 months (I can't believe it's been this long). It was quite a task to get them. They arrived in Korea on Christmas day. It was an eventful day, I mean, of course, Christmas has always been eventful and this by no means was more eventful than, say, the first Christmas, but you know what I mean. Chrtistmas is not really a big deal here in Korea. Thirty percent of the population is Christian but the holiday is quite small in comparison to the two main holidays Chuseok and Solnal. This has the benefit of lessoning the materialistic feel of a Christmas in North America that begins the day after Halloween, but there was a feel that Christmas came without the Chebang that it is entitled to!
Christmas morning we made our way to the car rental shop to pick up the car that we had reserved to pick up my parents, brother and their luggage. Unfortunately upon arrival we were told that a Korean licence was not sufficent to rent a car. Pardon? We're in Korea. For some reason, Koreans can use Korean licences to get cars. Unfortunately, foreigners can only use International Drivers licences to get cars in Korea. We didn't get it, but it's really not all that unusual here for plans to change. We were presented with the option of renting a car without any insurance. We declined as in Korea you get honked at if you stop at a red light at night and the country does not believe in stop signs (amazingly they figure it out though).
And so we arrived at the bus station, took the bus to Incheon, the airport, and waited for their flight. Due to a miscommunication about flights we were sort-of maybe waiting at the wrong gate. Miraculously, my brother stumbled upon us waiting for them and it all got sorted out. Thank goodness!
The rest of the trip went smoothly and we didn't lose them again. Christmas was spectacular and they brought us many much missed items from home - my grandmothers' jam and shortbread cookies along with Christmas presents, and maple and oreo cookies!
My parents came into the school we work at and got to see some of the students who are participating in a penpal program with their school. Bruce came out with us for his first $17 all you can drink night and experienced the neon jungle that is Korea after 9:00pm.
For New Years we went to Seoul and my parents Christmas shopped it up. We were actually able to rent a car with insurance with another company and got them to Daecheon near the ocean. A little too cold for swimming but the beach is renowned for sea shells. There they had exciting cultural and language barrier experiences that are quite frequent. The two elevators in the hotel went only to odd or even floors. Try understanding that in Korean. Pools here have very specific rules and regulations. Who really knows what they are?! The lifeguards just kind of yell sometimes. All in all I think they had a good time. We were a little worried about what kind of food they would enjoy but I think that we've been here long enough to safely navigate towards the galbi bliss as opposed to the octopus (think spicy rubber bands in hot water, and you're close).
Anyway, it was a phenomenal visit. We loved it. We want some more of it. Therefore if anyone is intersted in vacationing in Korea, we would love to have you!