Turducken and Bicycle Kicks

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Even though we do not celebrate Thanksgiving over here, I still took my Thursday to think (even more) about how I am thankful for my family, friends, and opportunity to come over here to have this adventure! This year the Delaware Saad family was all around the world for the holiday! I'm here...duh... then Mum, Beth, Alex and Edward flew off across the pond to see our family and friends in England and go to a lovely wedding (Congratulations Haley xoxo!) and then Dad pulled the short straw and had to work over the holiday so he is manning the fort back home. I'm guessing he and Henry are enjoying the quiet house and celebrating with a Guinness and the crossword at the moment! 

My Thanksgiving did not go without the food however, as a "western" bar nearby held a Thanksgiving feast for anyone who wanted to enjoy it this past Saturday! Obviously, we could not pass up a turducken and all the regular side dishes including stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce! Katrina, Shanna, Seol, and I arrived super early hoping to beat the crowd to the food. We were the only ones there for a while...we must have looked desperate for Thanksgiving food...Lots of people showed up eventually! So many that the bar actually started to give out serving platters and chopsticks for people to use to eat their meal! I'm so glad I got to celebrate the holiday with good friends and good food!

Thanksgiving plate

Nice Seol!

After a fun evening Saturday night, Shanna and I head out today to the Seoul Worldcup Stadium to watch an FC Seoul soccer match and explore the Expat festival that was put on at the stadium as well. The festival was small but had some neat areas to check out. They had 4 stands each showcasing the traditional foods of a certain country. We tried some khuushuur from Mongolia, which is lamb in a pastry-like dough and a sweet, marshmallow type candy. Both were yummy!

Shanna trying the candy

Russian Toast with Cream Cheese...

Next was the booth from Russia, where we decided that they were serving cream cheese on toast. Tasted good, but slightly less exotic than we imagined.
 Shout out to Aunt Nyree for the next booth from the Phillippines! They served some dried mango and a delicious noodle dish called Pansit Bihon. Could have definitely gone for seconds of this dish!










And lastly we stopped at the Vietnamese tent serving plantain chips and Gui Cuon which was like an egg roll with a thin noodle wrap instead of the deep fried version at your local Chinese buffet.

It was very cool to try all these different foods! Sadly, the line for fried chicken and waffles across the festival was about 50 times longer than the line for these foods. Even though foreigners travel thousands of miles to come and experience new cultures and traditions, they still can't get enough fried chicken and waffles? Oh well, to each their own.

Another a part of the festival was a performance by multiple dance troops. One group did some show tunes including a song from Chicago, which was fun to watch, if not just for the overly-enthusiastic-and-probably-high-on-hairspray-fumes lead male dancer...

Couldn't get a good photo of him without a flailing limb or goofy face

There was also a group of ballroom dancers that did about 50 tango pieces in a row. One tango is great, two is pushing it, but after the eighth one we were all tangoed out. We took a walk around to kill some time before heading into the stadium and stumbled upon the next act...

We had matching hats!

These next guys would be performing the traditional Korean folk dance called "Pungmul" which combines dancing, drumming, and singing into one amazing performance! They wear headdresses called "sangmo" that have long ribbons attached which they twirl and spin throughout the performance. Seeing them keep time with their instruments, coordinate a dance, and ALSO do ribbon choreography was so impressive! They all had huge smiles on their faces the whole time too which made it that much more enjoyable to watch!

After their performance, we joined the crowd into the stadium.

Surrounded by red and black, Shanna and I found seats and got ready for the match to begin. On one side of the stadium sat the HUGE section of loyal fans that do all the dances and cheers while jumping up and down the entire time. Not only did they have circus-tent-sized flags, but they also showered the stands with confetti and had fireworks at the beginning of each half as well as when a goal was scored! This brought back memories from the Philadelphia Union game this past summer! A lot of my students are big fans of the FC Seoul team- I wonder if any of them were there among the hundreds of people in the stands? Anyways, the game got off to a great start and FC Seoul scored a goal in the first few minutes of the first half! And with a bicycle kick no-less which makes it 10 times cooler obviously! The fans went crazy! Such a fun atmosphere to be involved in! That goal would be the one and only goal scored throughout the game, so my first FC Seoul experiences was not only a blast, but it was also a winning game! Can't wait to check out more games once the weather gets nice, maybe one day we will go sit with the crazy jumping fans instead?

Confetti, Flags, and ots of cardio

They gave a specific time for vuvuzelas- smart move FC Seoul, smart move.

All bundled!

 So it is already the last week of November, and you all know what that meaaaansss! Another hilarious video of my students dancing! This month is "From Me to You" by the Beatles and my students absolutely LOVE the song and the dance. They want to practice it every day and cannot wait to perform in front of everyone. Make sure you keep an eye out for the video next week!

The next few weekends are going to be full of birthday celebrations, Christmas parties, and other fun activities, and then it will be time for my Christmas in Thailand! Getting so excited to see that part of the world and experience yet another new culture!

Korean Word of the post:

내 발가락에 감각이 없어요 (Nae balgalage gamgagi eopseoyo) "I can't feel my toes"

Miss everyone- sending my love from over here! xoxo