Thanksgiving in Korea

I will call it Thanksgiving because the following events took place during the week of Thanksgiving, but other than silently giving thanks for all of the blessings in my life and eating lots of food, I didn't really celebrate Thanksgiving in any traditional form.

In my school there are 11 foreign teachers; 8 Americans, 2 Canadians, and a lad from England. With 8 Americans all in the same place, far away from home, I am sure you can imagine we wanted to at least try and celebrate one of America's favorite holiday's in Korea. The 3 non- Americans were excited to join in on their first Thanksgiving ever (I hope we did the U.S.A. proud).

Due to the fact that Thursday and Friday were normal work days for us, we decided to have our huge feast on the Friday night after Thanksgiving! We went the easy and decided to do it potluck style. Luckily, one of my co-workers Alan offered to have Thanksgiving at his place. The majority of us have no oven or microwave or more than a one room studio. Alan pays extra to live in a large apartment that comes equipped with an oven (and a regular shower) so it was nice to have that at our disposal. Everyone was in charge of bringing a dish to share and a bottle of wine. We tried to make typical Thanksgiving food, but due to the lack of ingredients in Korea the only thing we ate that some people in the U.S. may have on Thanksgiving was corn (that's what I was in charge of). Apparently, I have no clue how much food 11 people eat, because I brought enough corn to feed an army. The amount of corn I brought became the running joke of the night. I still have about 1 lb. of corn left in my refrigerator and 3 unopened cans. I'll be eating corn for the rest of the year.

When all was said and done our meal consisted of hot dog chicken, corn, a delicious feta salad, raw veggies and dip, twice baked potatoes, fruit, grits, apple pie, and about 30 bottles of wine (since EVERYONE had the same idea of bringing an extra bottle just in case..). For those of you who don't already know this- there is no turkey in Korea. You better believe I will be eating a big turkey sandwich with turkey from the deli as soon as I get home. Anyway- we resorted to chicken. You may ALSO not be aware of this delicious treat we like to call hot dog chicken. It is exactly what it sounds like- chicken that tastes like a hot dog. Not all chicken tastes this way, but it is impossible to tell just by looking (and most of us can't read Korean). Unfortunately we ended up with hot dog chicken for our Thanksgiving meal so most of it went to waste (it is just as gross as it sounds), but there was plenty of other food to go around!

After 11 of us spent the evening eating, talking, drinking wine, and playing Wii in Korean we decided to top the night off with some Noraebong. Every Noraebong has at least one large suite that fits about 20 people. We sang until about 4:30 in the morning before heading back to our respective apartments. Needless to say my Thanksgiving was a blast, but I will definitely be excited for Turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes next year!