Thanksgiving

We had a thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. Our friends Tom and Lindsey from back home came, as well as our newer friends Kitho from North Carolina, Min-Hwa from Busan, Korea, and Noor from the Netherlands. It was Min-Hwa and Noor's first time celebrating thanksgiving.

Katie prepared pies and stuffing, Kitho made mashed potatoes, Tom and Lindsey brought some wine, I made sweet potatoes. Unfortunately turkey isn't very easy to get or affordable here, so we had to have a roast chicken instead. But it wasn't too far from a traditional meal.

After dinner and pies, and a few bottles of wine, we played some Wii games.

Then we had a couple of bottles of soju.

And then we we were ready to go to NORAEBANG (고래방). Not exactly traditional, but it was fun anyway.

There's a Noraebang near our place that I've wanted to go to for a while. Noraebangs are very prevalent. You cannot walk down any street without seeing several (Unless, of course, you can't read korean, in which case you'd be oblivious). And so, because of their prevalence, they try to differentiate themselves. This particular Noraebang tries to set itself apart from the rest by having a creepy alien-nest theme. Each of the Noraebang singing rooms is covered in a plaster to look like some sort of alien plant is growing over them. And there are creepy statues everywhere. Inside the nest-rooms, though, is just your typical Noraebang set-up. Several television sets for the Karaoke part, lined with benches, a giant remote control to input the songs, and some tamborines.

All Noraebangs have an English language section, though I'm beginning to realize that they all have the same crappy selection. Still it's a couple of hundred english songs to choose from.

We paid up front for an hour at 15,000 won (about 15 dollars) and sang to our hearts content and until our voices were fading.

It was a strange but satisfying thanksgiving.