Christmas Cooking with Allison and Jeju-do Adventures with Eric

SO, here comes the first of a few updates! We'll start off with Christmas cooking and Jeju-do adventures.

Christmas dinner was to be an epic event. My good friend Allison and I had been salivating over all the goodies we were going to make--all vegan and all delicious. We were going to start at noon-ish and have everything ready by 5 so we could eat, drink, be merry and then I could merrily go to the airport and pick up my oh so amazing Christmas/Yuletide/Winter Whatever gift--Eric visiting for 10 days!

When the day arrived, there were some hiccups, but we got started right around 1pm, so we weren't too behind. We cooked for six hours! It was a lot of fun, but we were definitely hungry by the time the meal came together. We had wassail--which I had never had before, but will now be including in my holiday ritual--, garlic knots, carrot-ginger soup, roasted veggies, spicy green beans, vegan quiche, mashed potatoes and chocolate mousse. It was amazingly satisfying--though the recipes I made other than the quiche could use a little tweaking, all of Allison's food was stellar! Photo credit: Allison Peasley


So, we stuffed our faces and recouped a bit before heading to the subway so we could head north and part ways as I ventured to Incheon International Airport. I ran into my acquaintance Kiwi James (not to be confused with my friend Brit James) who is a public school teacher and (trying not to be bitter here) has time off until February and was headed to Malaysia for two weeks.

Anyway I got to the airport and had scribbled a sign that read, "Komrade Boyfriend"--a play on Eric's Hell's Gentlemen name. I felt like I was waiting FOREVER, but eventually Eric came out of the gate sporting his Tron sweatshirt. And, social norms of Korea be damned, I totally kissed him in the airport! Woo!

After he suited up to greet the Korean winter-- about -15* C or 5* F-- we made the hour long trek back to my apartment. When we got back to my place we had to assess what would be necessary for our trip to Jeju-do, an island to the south of the Korean Peninsula that is warmer than Incheon by about 10*C, so significantly warmer but still not Thailand. Then it was time to collapse as we had to wake up by 7 to get out of the apartment to make the flight to Jeju the next day.

It took us an hour on the bus to get to Gimpo, but we made it in plenty of time and got to people watch and play some Word Warp--all terribly exciting. We got on the plane, and that's when the difference between traveling in the States and traveling in Korea was apparent. The walls of the plane were decorated in scenes of flight--both standard aviation and space.


Then there was a revolution. Or what looked like a revolution, suddenly, about 3/4 the way through the flight the flight attendant said something in Korean (whereas all the announcements prior had been made in both Korean and English, this was only in Korean) and everyone's fists shot into the air. Now, being that Eric and I were the only white people on the plane, I naturally began to fear for my life. Eric and I chuckled at the "revolution" and then waited to see what would happen. Suddenly, I recognized some Korean "Gawi (scissors), Bawi (paper), Bo (rock)!"

Eric's legs on an Asian budget airline:


Now, for the three people (Eric is one of them, and he was there for this, so it's really just for Sally and Cooper that I make this reference) who read this and have watched Farscape, there is an episode in which Chriton teaches D'argo how to play Rock, Paper, Scissors, and the two are playing pretty much the whole episode. That's how Koreans play Rock, Paper Scissors. You see it on the streets, in stores, on the subway, and apparently on plane rides to Jeju-do.

So, yes, this was a plane wide Rock, Paper, Scissors game. The first few rounds were determined by beating whatever sign the flight attendant threw down. Then it was down to the last two people and whomever won received some sort of gift certificate. I was pumped and thought there would be another game--I've recently been called a "Rock, Paper, Scissors Master," but I was wrong. :( Alas, I didn't get to join in, but I was ready, for the next time.

We landed safely in Jeju-si (Jeju City) and I was pumped to be somewhere 5 degrees Celsius warmer than the -bajillion degrees I was facing back home. Seriously, on Christmas Incheon was colder than Moscow. >.< I was so excited, lalala, and then, I saw the snow. Boooo. It was really surreal, really. Snow on palm trees. So began our journey in Jeju.