I told my sister and her bf that I’d started a movie theme with my vacation blogs, given the Lost in Translation and Perfect references in the previous two posts, so they’ve been asking me what movies describe my other experiences so far. I’ve been thinking for a while on the movie that’s most apt to describe Thanksgiving dinner, and the best I can come up with is a cross between The Great Outdoors with John Candy and any National Lampoon holiday/vacation movie.
This was my introduction not only to attempts to cater to foreigners living in Korea, but to the English-teaching ex-pat experience. I met people from South Africa, Canada and all parts of America. I learned about the quirky routines people established here to make Korea feel less foreign and more like home, since these people are living and working here – not just having an extended vacation jaunt.
Jen, Jarod, and I were three of the 10 or so English-speaking people in our group that booked a traditional Thanksgiving dinner at this bar that caters to foreigners; I think our group was one of 4 that were there that night. Since our group was so large, we merited two home-cooked turkeys, which were delivered in their tin foil roasting pans, all wrapped in foil. They were accompanied by a few paper plates that held the plastic utensils and butter knives, as well as a very large bowl full of lettuce…which we were told we needed to eat immediately as our pre-dinner salad so that bowl could be used for the mashed potatoes. Dinner wouldn’t be complete without the obligatory cranberry sauce, which we received – can-rings and all! – as well as dinner rolls, stuffing, gravy and the aforementioned mashed potatoes. At each end of the table, the guys carved the two birds using the butter knives we received, and we all dug in like it was the Last Supper. We capped our meal with apple and pumpkin pie, both of which were carefully divvied up for everyone to enjoy. And all of this food was provided by the beanie-wearing waiter/bartender who may or may not have owned or worked at the bar, because I really don’t understand Korean laws regarding foreigners working in the country and/or owning businesses in the country.
In all, it was a really nice way to spend Day 3 in Korea, especially after we made it back to the apartment without incident in the taxi, despite the taxi driver nearly running over a pedestrian because of his indecision over whether to stop at an intersection (the taxi driver, not the pedestrian).
