I was invited to a Christmas party that was hosted by a friend of all of our bloggers, Guissell, a week before the Christmas day. It was a final exam week for me and couldn't put much thoughts on anything else. After the finals I was busy catching up with much personal developments stuff that's related to arts and actually thought it was a Sunday on the Christmas eve and the Christmas was still 4 days away. I was enjoying myself creating art without planning to leave the house for the Christmas. Then an hour past since everyone was suppose to meet at Guissell's house I was finishing up a segment I was aiming for the day and looked at a clock thinking that people are probably having a Christmas party by now. Still felt a bit lazy, but maybe I was expecting something outside of my everyday life. I took a quick shower, contacted Guissell if the party's still going, and took a little trip to get over there.
There were a dozen or more people in Guissell's house by the time I was there. They've been already there for 3 hours and the party was very heated with laughter and conversations that they actually needed to keep the windows open in near freezing point temperature. Four things I noticed as soon as I entered her place: There were Christmas decorations everywhere including two Christmas trees, amazing dishes of food still covering the whole table, lots of people whom I recognized half and the others were strangers, and 1/3 of the guests were Koreans. And the fifth thing, the ceiling was very high in that apartment.
I wasn't much of a drinker for the night, but I brought the bottle of brandy for a taste. Every other drinks were wines, beers, Makgully (Korean rice wine), and Soju (it's like a watered down asian brand vodka) and bottled water. I picked water and started sipping it, alcoholic party habit. And listening to a guy who was telling a hilarious expat story to everyone. I didn't get his name from him, but I may have overheard his name was Michael, who seems to be living next door from Guissell's apartment. One part I remember was his last experience of a Jjim-jil-bang that made him never to go one of those places again. Jjimjilbang is a combination of Sauna and public baths, and that public bath area has a nature of 'everyone must be naked' with men and women's room separated. So it isn't quite unnatural for most Korean men to have seen other men's vegetables a thousand times. Then there's some older Korean men who has a habit of teasing other men's vegetables and often attempt to grab them. You can guess that could make a guy a bit jumpy. And his story along with that made everybody laugh for some good minutes. Man was a good story teller. Later that night I found out he's a great painter too, which was something I can relate to.
Some of the English teachers had to work the next day and needed to leave early. And that left enough space for people to walk around. And I think it was Guissell who first asked me if I can mix a simple cocktail for her. I'd like to think myself as a good bartender. So I made one for her, simple brandy and grape juice mix. Then couple of Korean ladies took a sip and asked me to mix their own as well. And that's how I met Ashley, who has a sister in the room also named Ashley, who was a student of Ashley Guerrero. And apparently this Ashley already knew my name, heard a lot about me from Ashley, Ashley said. It's not the first time that someone I never even met actually bothered to remember my name that's passed on by others. It still fascinates me and a flattery. So that much we started talking. Then I learned that Ashley is in a nursing school with a friend who has a same name with my cousin who's in a nursery school. Such a coincident that my cousin and Ashley knew each other, it would have been. It still is quite a coincident that we knew two different person in the same name and age and the study major.
There were couple of quite an exciting Korean fellas who's been hanging by themselves for most of the time. One was a clark from a GS convenient store near by, the other one was someone Guissell met at the gym with another guy at the same gym who was even quieter than I was because he didn't know much English. And there was a friend of Ashley siblings who was rather quiet as well, although she spoke flawless English as far as I been able to listen to her. So I got very curious with these Koreans than anything else for some reason. I've been trying to mingle with them for most of the evening, sitting around on the floor together.
So that time flew by as a chill out time. It was past midnight and Guissell needed to catch a ride to school at 1130 ish in the morning. Everyone agreed it was a fun evening and shouldn't push too far over the work. There were still tons of foods to go around that would have took forever to clean out herself. So the host generously passed away most of the food to the guests, me carrying a day's meal in my bag, talked about we may do this again since now Guissell know how many people she can fit in in her house, and everyone said goodbye as if we're about to see each other again pretty soon. It was good to make some new acquaintances with a lot of people.
Awwww man, YG, I fully intended on crashing that party, but there were too many other ones I was already committed to!
On Christmas Eve I played card games with a small group of friends. The next morning, I went to Thomas' place with a small group for Christmas brunch. Man that guy makes a mean eggs bennie!
After that, there was a production of A Christmas Carol at the Performing Arts Centre. It may have been intended for young audiences, but it still had some good entertainment value, including a new way to say Merry Christmas, "Merry Creamsoup!" The theatre sold me a light-up star that I brought by Ray & Su's for baby Shine.
I rushed to Ray & Su's, but not before making a nice, nutritious Christmas salad for the holiday dinner guests. We had some great holiday fun, but I had a secret Santa gift-giving back at Thomas' to join. When I showed up, the group had grown considerably since brunch. Things got chill and I made my world-famous apple cranberry cider.
I love how this holiday, no matter what you call it, has unique traditions all over the world. Maybe we light up the darkest day of the year, or eagerly anticipate the arrival of the spirit of generosity and festivity embodied in the form an elderly sleigh-rider. Maybe we just go out and see who is getting together and add our own energy to the mix.
But no matter what, it cannot be denied: Korea gets the seasonal spirit in spades!
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