Our Housewarming Party!

A real cool looking tree. This is in one of intersections
on our walk to the Home Plus.

The day of the housewarming, I decided to go to a local florist and get some flowers. It was so interesting ordering a floral arrangement when you really can't communicate except by gesturing. The shop was being run by a brother and sister. The sister was working on my order when the brother went over to his computer and started reading me questions in English that he must have typed into a translation program. He asked in very good English if I was from the United States, if my husband was in the military (I get that all the time), where I live, how long will we be living in South Korea and if I would visit their shop again. I tried to answer in Korea, ne for yes and anio for no. Although I tended to embellish my answers and when I finally asked him if he spoke English, he replied, "very little." I was really surprised because his pronunciation was excellent. I had a great time and did remember to thank them in Korean before I left. Kamsa hamnida!

A view of the flowers from the top.

We all met at a local Korean restaurant at 7:00 pm. Curt and I were the first to arrive and we had a little trouble telling the hostess that we had reservations. I don't know why I am always so inclined to wave my hands when I am trying to get a Korean to understand what I am saying but I do it all the time. She finally understood us and we went to our reserved tables. Seating is on the floor, mats are provided if you prefer. Co-workers showed up for the next 45 minutes or so. Someone ordered food and tray after tray of food came out. We had really delicious pork, lots of different lettuces to roll the meat in with lots of things to put onto your pork. They also had some squid which I declined to try.

Hubby wanted to take the pictures for the night and then he forgot to take any at the restaurant! Doesn't he know I wanted some for my blog?! Oh well, next time I will insist upon being in charge of the camera. Dinner ended up to be about 30-40 people.

I left early to heat up my appetizers with one of Curt's co-workers who has become a good friend of mine here. We had just gotten back to the apartment and were in the process of heating everything up when everyone started coming. Of course, they wanted to see the house. I was showing a group of young girls our bedroom when they proceeded to say "ooooo" when they saw our bed. One even jumped onto the bed, they were really surprised how tall the bed was. Koreans seem to sleep either on the floor or on very low mattresses. Curt got back by then and wondered what the heck was going on in our bedroom!

They were also quite curious about my craft room. They do wonder what I do all day when Curt is at work. They saw bookcases filled with craft supplies and my craft table covered with things I was working on. They really have no idea what polymer clay is over here and are really fascinated by it.

Pictures of the party.

My new best friend, JG. Curt and everyone in the U.S. calls all the

Korean co-workers by their initials. I'm trying to learn their actual

names.

JG has also loved to give me a hard time since the very first time I met him, so he's got a special place in my heart. He is sitting in my Aunt's glider and he wanted to take it home. They all were pretty facinated with how the glider worked. He was also spending a great deal of the evening trying to convince me that Korean men do ALL the cooking. I told him if he could get Curt to do that he could have that rocker. I also told him the rocker was haunted by my Aunt and he might not really want it. He didn't believe me until his cigarettes that were in his pocket ended up under the end table. Hmmmmm, he left without the rocker. I don't know if it was because of my Aunt or because he couldn't convince Curt to take over all the cooking.

Curt put a slide show on our television using his computer and was showing a bunch of pictures of our life and his visits in Korea along with visits to other countries. They really enjoyed seeing themselves on the television. He also played songs from his IPod in the background. It was really cool. He's such a smart guy!

I'm still not that good at sitting cross-legged on the floor but these guys

have it down to a science.

They seemed to really like the "American" food. The biggest hit was the bacon crackers which I found on the Internet. Here is the link for the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Bacon-Crackers/Detail.aspx. Everything turned out great.

They asked for blankets and then proceeded to set up two card games. They were playing poker here and for real money.

This is the card deck they were using for the other game, called "go stop". The cards are about 2" long and are plastic. They were throwing them into the middle of the blanket. I thought these would make cute focal beads just put a hole in the top. I might just do that!

We were given these two huge planters. They are

gorgeous. Now I just have to keep from killing the

plants.

Even though we asked that nobody bring presents, we got a lot anyway.
This pictures includes toilet paper, Zip Lock storage containers,

Kleenex, detergent, toothpaste, Korean Febreze and tea.

Everyone left around 11:15 p.m. We were both exhausted but it was a lot of fun.

Today, Curt received a lot of emails from co-workers expressing what a great time they had at our housewarming. But the one that stands out in my mind the most was an email by Tae-Hyun who said: "As far as I know, In the case of moving into new house, the more people come to party, the more luck your house can keep. because we believe that by making the noise ( like gamble, singing , chatting ) in new house, we could drive the ghost who lives in new house originally ( kind of superstition )." Isn't' that the coolest thing you ever heard?