Christmas Plans: Korea!

This year for Christmas, I'm planning to take a trip to South Korea with Jessica, one of the new ALTs at my Board of Education. We haven't bought our plane tickets or booked any hotels/hostels yet, but we're planning on leaving Kochi a few days after Christmas and coming back about a week into the new year.

Since I'll be in town for Christmas, I'm hoping there will be an ALT Christmas party as there has been in the past few years. Past iterations have included party games such as demolishing gingerbread houses by means of headbutting. Also, I'd like to buy a Christmas cake. It's kind of a Japanese Christmas tradition. And if I'm lucky, maybe I can even go on a date with Tatsuya on Christmas Eve. December 24th is apparently a popular date night. I've never thought of Christmas as a particularly romantic holiday, but Japan celebrates adopted holidays in its own way.

Jessica and I are both in the process of researching what we want to see and do, but we're definitely planning to visit Seoul, and possibly one other city. A friend has recommended Busan. It won't exactly be a tropical vacation, since Korea is very cold in the winter. But just getting out of Kochi for a while should be a pleasant change of pace. I'm excited to go; I don't know much about Korea, but I've gradually been becoming more interested since I started learning about K-pop music last winter.

As part of my preparations, I've decided to (attempt to) learn to read hangul, the Korean script. I'd like to be able to read some common signs. It's probably  not necessary since we're just doing basic sightseeing in major tourist areas, but I'm happy to have a new project. I've kind of been stalling out on studying Japanese, so working on a different language for a while gives me a sense of accomplishment. I also want to learn how to pronounce a few words correctly. If I can memorize some basic things like "Hello" and "Thank you", I'll feel a lot more comfortable.

Anyhow, next week Jessica and I are going to get together to compare notes and start booking things. For now we're both still more focused on the upcoming Halloween party. It's hard to believe the party is only two days away; we've been planning our costumes for such a long time. I'll have to post some pictures of everyone in full costume and makeup. We've even bought some liquid latex for making realistic wounds. Hopefully we aren't too grotesque. But hey, it's Halloween.

So, that's about all that's going on right now. I'll be sure to post updates when I get an idea of our itinerary.