A Child's Christmas in Ulsan

Greetings

Welcome to the final Shayne and Jo Christmas post for the 2006 year. It's been a pretty unique holiday experience over here thus far and we wanted to share how our actual Christmas day unfolded with you.

It hardly ever snows in Ulsan, so imagine our surprise when we awoke on the 25th and discovered that Mother Nature had blessed us with a magical coat of fresh powder and a tranquil-like setting straight from a Robert Bateman painting. Why here, take a look at the photo I captured from our very own living room window:

Ahhh, just beautiful isn't it?

Sigh, I wish that was the case. I think Mother Nature got drunk and took the night off. Because when we woke up the sun was shining, the snow was nowhere to be found, and the only thing peaceful about the situation was that at least we weren't experiencing yet another typhoon.

This is the actual view from our window on Christmas morning. I would have traded a week's worth of kimchi for a single snowflake.

When I was a child I used to annoy my entire family (except for my sister, Sheri, who was my partner in crime) by waking up at 4:30AM and begging to open all of the presents. These days I'm a little more chill and I think Jo and I rolled out of bed around 11 AM or so. Except, of course, for the brief interlude where my mother extracted some revenge by waking us up at 6:30 AM to wish us a Merry Christmas. It wouldn't have been so bad if it didn't result in Jo whining about my family and her need for beauty sleep for a good hour or so (true story).

I have to say that this year we were totally spoiled. If I had known that moving across the ocean would have meant so many great gifts I would have left years ago.

My sister Sheri knows that I have a deep love of literature and sent me one of my favorite peer-reviewed periodicals: The Modern Journal of Americanus Teenagus Studious.

...Or in layman's terms, an Archie comic book. Sheri is probably the only person who would have thought to send me one of these and it made my day. I learned a lot from Archies as a kid: how to ask out women, how to fight off cads, and how to disarm nuclear warheads.

Speaking of comic books, Jo's mom sent her a collection of one of our favorites: For Better or For Worse - The Silver Collection.

Jo's still trying her best at learning to read, but in the meantime I try and read her one of the strips everyday. She's up to the letter G though, and we expect that by September she'll have mastered the whole alphabet.

The string of great books/comics continued as I opened the following (as modeled by my lovely assistant):

Jo's mom got me a copy of Jack Layton's new book and I can't wait to read it. It was actually one of my favorite gifts and I don't really have anything funny to say about it. So let's move on shall we?

Jo's brother Bryn sent us one of the greatest literary collections of all time. Surely the BR ranks up there with any work by Tolstoy or Steinbeck or Johnson. Not sure what the BR is? Then take a look at my new one as I admire it in its natural habitat.

The Bathroom Reader series has been shaping great minds for over twenty years, and I look forward to spending a little quality time with mine in the future.

One of the coolest gifts that I received was the Hitchcock collection that my friend Jason got me. It's nine discs long, includes a majority of his greatest hits, and is easily one of the nicest things that anyone has ever bought me. Now I remember why we've been friends since grade nine. Rightfully so, the collection has found its new home beside our other treasures (our golden pig, snow globe, and Clinton biography) .

It was a good year for movies as we received a tonne from my mom as well. She managed to get us about a dozen great movies. I was really surprised as my mom's taste can be a little out there. I'm not joking at all when I tell you that once when I was young she went to the video store and rented a Richard Simmons video for my sisters and I to watch. Maybe she was just telling us to lose a little weight, but that was the last time she ever picked a video. :)

(Author's note: we received a lot of gifts, but had to make some editorial decisions and for brevity's sake, some presents had to be cut from the blog.)

This shot actually has nothing to do with Christmas. We just live like pigs.

Speaking of pigs...we couldn't find a turkey and had to make due with a chicken (yeah I have no idea how that relates to pigs either).

This little fellow is Simon and although the second year university student version of me would beat the new me up, he was rather tasty.

We managed to have a great dinner that included mashed potatoes, gravy, a vegetable medley, stuffing, cranberry sauce and Simon (whom we roasted).

(If you look closely you will see that Simon bares a striking resemblance to Ron Jeremy)

Here's a shot of Jo sitting at the table just before we ate. Thanks to some generous relatives and my trip to Canada we were able to get almost everything we wanted for the meal. Sure, Martha Stewart would never approved of wine in martini glasses, or plastic plates, or canned cranberries, but it's Ulsan and you take what you can get (besides f$#! Martha Stewart; she's no Mike Holmes).

We finished off the scene by downloading one of the focal points of a Canadian Christmas: the Shaw fire log.

Nothing says Christmas like a fake fireplace. Overall Christmas was about as good as it could be being so far from our family and friends. We're definitely not going to be forgetting it anytime soon.

We want to thank everyone who sent us a card or present. We were really spoiled (thanks dad for the new camera we're about to buy) and appreciate everything more than you know.

One last time - Merry Christmas.

Cheers,

Shayne

P.S - Only 363 days until C-Day