As you all know this year we spent Christmas in a small lodge (known as a pension in Korea) with a whole bunch of foreigners! And it was a blast. A lot more relaxed than I anticipated but really good fun.
This is the one we stayed in http://hanok54.co.kr/ if you click past the introduction page. Click preview. Click
Then click 
You will get an idea of how beautiful our little pension was! Unfortunately, I can't download the photos so I thought this would be the best way for you to see what it was all about. Oliver and I weren't too good with taking photos this weekend.
As you can see from the layout of the pension, there were no beds and no private bedrooms so for two days we had a slumber party of note. It was quite peaceful actually.
Our Christmas day was broken up into a series of "times". Breakfast time, snack time, nap time, movie time, dinner time, game time, drunk time and hangover time. It just happened this way...it wasn't planned...I promise!
Friday night (Christmas Eve) ended up being quite a bender....we stayed up until 4am giving Santa no chance to drop off our gifts. The others finished of a bottle of Tequila (bleh!) and numerous bottles of Soju. So on Christmas day there were a fair share of hangovers to go around.
Oh, did I forget to mention that we had a disco ball and randomly started a
trance disco on Friday night..Bizzare!
Once up we decided to talk a walk to get some good food....Alas, many restaurants were closed leaving us with very few options. So after a 20 minute walk in the freezing cold we opted for the first restaurant we came across which was Bosam...Yum! Slices of meat, with herbs, lettuces and numerous other bits. It wasn't what everyone was after but at least our tummies were full.
Yummy leaves and fresh herbs!
After realising how cold it was we unanimously decided that we did not want to leave the pension again and we wanted to stock up on everything we needed. So we stopped off at a Family Mart. There must have been about eight of us there (we left three hungover souls at the pension) all kitted out with shopping baskets. We went crazy...wine, beer, snacks galore...I simply couldn't stop myself. I am not sure if the lady behind the counter was horrified at having so many loud foreigners in her store at one time or of she was over the moon because she just made more money off of us than she could have wished for on such a slow day!
On the walk back home we came across a frozen river....a novelty in our eyes. Immediately we started picking up rocks and trying to break the ice...but it was tough...so the boys got more adventurous trying to walk on it while the girls settled for trying to get small pebbles into breaks in the ice. After about half an hour half of us started getting cold and went back...but some die hard boys (including Oliver) played on for another hour! Nothing like some good wholesome fun on Christmas Day.
The amazing frozen river...take note of brock in his Santa outfit...he wore that all day!
Once back I got hard to work to make some pancakes! Hmmmmm...I love pancakes. And I had a special ingredient from back home...Stroh Rum. Horrible to drink but fantastic to cook with!
The things started to die down as movie and nap time started...we got to watch some great Christmas flicks like Home Alone, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Avatar (Ok, I admit this isn't a Christmas movie but awesome nonetheless).
With temperatures and wind chill factor leaving outside at -20 Degrees Celcius we decided walking wasn't such a hot idea and opted for pizza, chicken take aways and kimchi rice! Quite a feast!
Our Christmas feast...mostly gone by now!
We then played a game to get Christmas presents which involved stealing gifts from others....Hmmmm...Let's just say some left happy and others not so happy. But then it was time for games....drinking games of course!We played everything from Korean drinking games like Bunny Bunny to classics like Sevens and funny ones like Obblydoobly.
Alas, despite our earlier shopping spree, our drinking supplies began to dwindle and the party faded at about two!
Thanks Friends for an awesome, chilled, and utterly funny Christmas!!!
The three South Africans (Oliver, Claudia and Stallone)
The two Brits (Natalie and Mike)
A drunk Korean (Aekyoeng) and a confused Canadian (Trevor)
My two favourite Americans (Brock and Lauren)
Everybody! Take note of Karolina's (the blonde at the back) very excited face!
and Matt (front). These two Americans very sneekily managed to dodge my camera in all other photos but this one!
Post by Claudia
P.S. If ever you decide to stay at this pension, the lady who runs it (a Korean hippie) is such a great laugh and will do everything in her eccentric power to make you comfortable!
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