Cats, Catch-up, and Christmas

It’s now been a little over a month since I arrived in Korea, and it seems like the perfect time for a vacation. Well, it’s more like I’m planning a trip for Christmas. Here in Korea, Christmas time is the time where every cellphone owner has the ”Last Christmas”  or “All I Want for Christmas” ringtone (with little else to be heard in between), and Korean-versions of  English carols can be heard in just about every store. Everyone is getting ready for the holidays, and despite all of the festivities I’ve no one to spend my Christmas with (*sob*). So, rather than spend Christmas all by my lonesome, wallowing in tears and drowning my sorrows in eggnog (better make that kimchi eggnog) I’m taking a few days off work (classes end on the 24th) and I’m heading to the most appropriate place for the Holidays…Beijing.

So this Friday, I’m off to China   And I’ll be spending the Christmas with my friend from New York, who now works and lives in Beijing. I’m really excited actually, for a number of reasons, but for the moment lets leave it at delicious Chinese food and homemade Christmas day brunch.

In the past few weeks I haven’t done a lot more outside of prepare for classes, but it’s still been really stressful, even when I’m not doing anything more then showing a movie in class (students have two weeks of class following their final exams and their winter recess, they wouldn’t pay attention even if I wanted to teach them something).

Outside of school I’ve done a little shopping and gone to a few different places, most importantly, I tried out the cat cafe in Myeong Dong. I had always thought that cat cafes existed solely in Japan, but apparently there are a few in Korea (and if the wikipedia entry is correct is actually a Taiwanese invention!) . I miss my cat, and as long as no one tells her about this, I think it’s alright that I went. Here and here are two kitty-related videos I took at the cafe.