Here we go a caroling

On Sunday, after IEC's service, some of the members of our church met up with member from the Jinju church (and other foreigners who are not church affiliated) and went caroling. Krista, a new(ish) girl and I both made the comment that it was odd that the first time we caroled was in Korea, but there you go.

It wasn't quite what I was expecting, because in order to do something like this, which is considered a religious event, you have to get a permit from city hall. Simon, the pastor at Jinju church, was able to get one. But that meant, unlike the traditional caroling that I was picturing, where we walk in a big group from place to place, we all stayed on this stage-like place near a bank downtown.

We had the permit for an hour, but we were a little bit late because we couldn't find where we were supposed to go. So we stayed for about 40 minutes. It was cold and windy, but still fun. We sang 1 or 2 songs that I had never heard before and got stared at a bit from the Koreans walking by. We mainly got ignored, but it was still fun. The only bad part was that my brother and cousins tried to call me, but I couldn't hear them and then my phone died so I didn't get to talk to my family while they celebrated Christmas. Oh well, maybe I'll get to talk to them on real Christmas.

Seriously I don't know why it posts them vertically - I didn't even rotate it in editing. Bizarre. Anywho, this was our set list. We didn't sing all of them, but we did quite a few.

After singing, Krista, Keung He and I went to a coffee shop and sat and talked for a couple of hours, then we went to some stores to find Krista a small table for her apartment. We found one, then went to a bookstore. Krista wants to learn Korean and Keung He offered to do a language exchange with her. I'm going to join as well. While we were looking for a book, a lady came up to me and asked if I found my table. I didn't really know what she was talking about, then I remember that we never got Krista's table out of the back of the cab. Luckily, the cab driver was a super nice guy and had actually brought the table inside the store and left it at the check-out counter.

Me and creepy thumbs-up Santa who "dances" when you get near him. We also got accosted by a giant snowman who gave us lollipops with super long sticks.

After that, we dropped off the table at Krista's apartment, then went to dinner at a gamjatang place. It was very crowded, but the people next to us were very nice and told us what we should order. We had soup, ramyan and rice mixed with kimchi and seaweed things. I really like the soup, but could do without the seaweed rice.

Keung He took lots of random pictures while the guy was making rice at the end.

After dinner we went grocery shopping because I needed a few things for the dessert I was going to make for church (after the cookies didn't work out) and then we all went home. I like those girls and we all said it's nicer to eat with other people, so we'd have to meet up more often. All in all, it was a nice day.