Happy Thanksgiving x 4!

Last year Danny and I got to celebrate Thanksgiving, but sadly it never included turkey.  However, this year we got to not only celebrate Thanksgiving Day but celebrate it 4 times and ALL included turkey!  AWESOME. 

At Thanksgiving #2... Dong Shin Church

Our first Turkey Day was spent with fellow "Andong-ians".  Thanks to our friend Erin, we started the season off right.  It's amazing how when its the holiday season, if you fit 20 people into a 300 square ft. apartment, it's not overcrowded but instead just nice and cozy :)

The next event was sponsored by our English church in Daegu, Dong Shin.  The food was organized and provided by the church and allowed over 200 lonely or hungry "waygookins" (foreigners) to enjoy a great turkey dinner.  One of the highlights, besides the food, was the replay of Danny's winning turkey call that got him the championship prize of 6 bagels last year.  The call might not exactly sound like a turkey to you, but if you've seen Arrested Development you will understand the genius of his interpretation.  Gobble, gobble.

Probably the last Thanksgiving where we'll see
kimbap and chopsticks :)

The third and fourth events were crazily enough on the same day.  You might think stuffing yourself silly two times in a row is overkill, but I say that it's just a warm-up for me. 

 

We started the day at our friend's, Taylor and Lindsey's, house and were truley impressed by the spread that presented itself.  In Korea, people may not have a grand dining room or huge table to eat around, but just being with good friends can give you a taste of home.  I think I was most impressed that day by the way Lindsey fit a huge turkey in her little oven and had about a centimeter to spare.  Impressive work for sure.

Around 4 pm we headed out to our 4th and final Thanksgiving feast to our friend's, Sarah and Pete's, house.  I have to admit that I was extremely excited for this one, not only because great people would be there, but Sarah and Pete are in the military and that meant that amazing AMERICAN delicacies would be there too.  This was the only meal that didn't have to special order a turkey... it's amazing what you can get from the wonderful world of the Commisary on the Daegu Military Base! Maybe some people wouldn't call green bean cassarole and delicacy, but here in Korea green beans and French's Onion Strips are hard to come by.  Oh it was good.  Highlights of the dinner were turkey (OF COURSE), sweet potatoe cassarole (Mmmmm...), green bean cassarole (are you kidding me?!), and Grandma Wilson's rum cake (I was pretty excited that it turned out... and that it had lots of rum in it ;)

That's right... #4.

All 4 Thanksgiving Days ended up great, but because of that, unfortunately I think that it will meal many an hour spent in the gym to recover... and I think the turkey coma might still be affecting us because man, Danny and I are tired!  (Or maybe it's just the psycho kids we've had all week... can you say A.D.D?)

The final Turkey Day at Sarah and Pete's magical home!
(It's just like America!)

Whether you were away from America or in the Land of the Free, I hope it was a great day of being thankful!  HAPPY TURKEY DAY!  Gobble, Gobble.

It's a Korean Thanksgiving!

This year, because we were away for Thanksgiving, I got it in my head that we should host a large Thanksgiving potluck in Andong. Danny laughed at me because of it, but I thought I would rather have a feast with a bunch of people then no feast at all. So the plan was to invite all the foreign teacher's we knew and have them each bring something and eat...and eat some more. Danny decided to make mashed potatoes for his contribution. I wanted to take this picture because doing anything on the ground is now called "Korean style". So you can see Danny was mashing these potatoes full on "Korean style"... I don't know if that is because we don't have counter space or because he is turning into a Korean. : )

I made grilled pork loin, which if I do say so myself, was delicious. I should have taken an after picture because raw meat isn't quite as appetizing, but oh well, you can imagine. Garlic, spices, garlic...mmmmm.

We hosted the party at our church in a random room. The church was so nice to let us have it there because when I entertained the idea of 20+ people coming to our tiny apartment, I knew that was a bad idea. Below is a picture of our friends Paul and Jennifer who also are in our Bible study:

We had a lot of space and tables so we can get a decent spread. I was really impressed by how much people brought. Here's some of the rare finds that I never expected: deviled eggs, baked ziti, macaroni and cheese, hummus, caprese salad, and pumpkin pie AND whipped cream. (Just a side note that whipped cream is really rare to get because a can of RediWhip is about $14 a can... not exactly affordable) I was surprised that I went for maybe 3 helpings of hummus and 2 slices of pumpkin pie. Oh yeah, I was full.

Danny got a lot... and then went back for more.

We had about 38 foreigners at the dinner and somehow we still didn't run out of food!

This is the after picture of Danny and our friends Seth and Anna:

(I see a food baby in there Danny!)

One thing that I did (that was maybe kinda nerdy but I didn't care) was do Thanksgiving trivia, sort of like a pub quiz. I think I might carry on this tradition because I thought it was great! There were a few random rounds, a fish or fowl round, and "finish this song round". Overall, I thought it was fun to celebrate Thanksgiving with some other Americans and nonAmericans. (And we also got a can of whipped cream out of the deal so that was AWESOME!) Being away for the holidays can be kinda sad, but I am determined to have make some fun Korean holiday memories. Christmas, here we come!