Christmas Day in Seoul...Merry Christmas...love you all and miss you....xoxoxox thanks for all the love, gifts, and phone calls!!!

allyssa and steven....allyssa was on the plane with me from chicago woooo and steven is from england...which you can obviously tell by the accent...
yummmyyyy...i need to not eat for like a million days cause im so full!!!

we went to play pool after church...there was a packers sign...i was excited...merry Christmas Wisconsin...



me and lovely ashley
SANTAAAAAAAAAAAdelicious oysters



Myeondong Cathedral...gorgeous!!!
i love this picture...i was lighting a candle before church and this woman was helping me light it and jen apparently decided to take a picture...i had no idea she was doing this but im glad she did...
me, Kim, and Jen at the piano...obviouslyyyyyyyyy
sorry, i dont know why it posted this video twice...but you already watched it above so no need to watch again :)

Christmas!!!!!!!!

It's almost CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!! I must admit it's bizarre not being around a single family member during this time but it seems like my first big transition as an adult. I mean, clearly i hope to be spending xmas with my family next year, but I'm definitely starting to realize how much my family of friends here means to me. I honestly am so lucky to have been blessed with like the coolest people ever...and they are all making my time in Seoul pretty great :)

This weekend we had a Christmas brunch at Jen's house for us girls and on sat night we went to Allyssa's house for a weird Christmas gift exchange. I can't really explain how the game worked cause it's kinda complex, but mostly I can't explain it cause I had a horrible migraine from friday afternoon until just a few hrs ago, so i have no clue how the game really worked since I spent most time at the party sleeping on the floor booooo. Butttt I did manage to get in some fun times etc before I retired to the floor for the evening haha. So basically my weekend was sleeping, brunch, xmas party. Oh wait, thats not true...today a bunch of us met up for burritos (our Sunday tradition) and then Katie and I went to this fun shopping/touristy district afterwards. We actually ended up seeing the new Jim Carey movie called "Yes, Man". The movie was funny, I mean i'm not much of a laugher at these dumb humor things but it was entertaining. But honestly, what was more entertaining was how we got our tickets. We seriously had to take a number from a machine just to stand in line to get the ticket haha it was really awkward...and of course the movies were only listed in Korean so i had no idea which movies were which so i just took a poster off the wall and handed it to the woman...i would never think to do something like this anywhere else, like not even Prague etc. but in Korea this sort of thing just somehow seems ok and nobody thinks its weird...so when in Rome....

oh and check out the videos at the bottom of this post...the first one is of everyone at the party saying merry christmas and the second is just a random video taken at the xmas party...

so yea, that's pretty much all to report from Asia. I hope you all are enjoying some time off. Thanks for staying updated on my life with all the phone calls, emails, etc. You are all so wonderful and I'm very blessed to have you in my life. Hopefully we will be celebrating together next year...

Much love as always and merry Christmas,
Maureen

I think there are about 256360348 million starbucks in seoul...
Myeong Dong - it's a really upscale touristy shopping area...the only use it has to me is the brand new Forever 21!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rob decided to pick out a nice red coat so that he could see girls fight over it...clearly he used to work in retail
Sarah and Jen. Sarah and I are going to visit my dad in India and Jen is one of the girls im going to guam with in a few weeks...cant wait!!!


My friend Ryan and I like to pretend we are dating and take funny pictures and videos. It's dumb I know, but it entertains us and all our friends here...so hopefully we will make it to august without a disastrous break up haha


my favorite girls...they all live close to me....and they are all from Toronto...soooo next year I need to visit Canada for sure...ive never had any desire to go to canada before this year but after hearing about toronto i must admit im pretty pumped to visit...

WINTER IN SEOUL

we bought sarah a fish for her birthday



So winter is definitely here....I'm ok with this, i mean yes it's very cold buttttt it's putting me in the mood for Christmas!!! although it will be very different to celebrate Christmas without my wonderful family but I am going with a bunch of friends to the Hilton for a huge WESTERN style christmas dinner...yayyyyy...super exciting cause this pic is of my thanksgiving...korean bbq...no turkey :(

so hmmmm update...not too much new here. work is good but it is starting to get very busy before break (two weeks from now) so it will be nice to be able to relax. luckily i get christmas day off but have to work the next day :( but after that vacation will soon follow cause im going to guam jan 17-23 with jen and ashley and then on the 24th my friend sarah and i are going to visit my dad in INDIA!!!! im beyond excited...i have wanted to go to India my entire life so I can't wait....

I'm applying to grad school right now so please keep your fingers crossed!!!!!

I finally was able to get to church today and it was great to find a new little community of foreigners :) Today was seriously probably my favorite day in seoul so far...went to church with my friend taryn, then got some starbucks (which of course is like 230958230958 won per coffee booooo), then met up with katie for lunch...then we went to another area of seoul and richie (my cousin) and our friend michael came and hung out with us...we seriously just spent 7 hrs in this restaurant and it was such a good day of relaxing, talking, etc.....

oh i had the most random encounter with the korean police on friday night...we couldnt get a cab home cause the cabs wouldnt stop for some reason (and the subway was closed) so the police tried to help by having us get in the car but then after 5 min of driving around kicked us out...it was completely bizarre...but now i can at least say ive been in a korean cop car i guess...this is not what i was expecting when we decided to brave the cold and get pancakes...needless to say, this whole situation annoyed me so i stayed home sat night and hibernated.....it was a solid decision for sure...

ok so these pics are kinda random...i forgot that i never posted any pictures of my school's sports day (like field day/gym day)...so here they are....aren't the kids sooo cute...these are all pics of the seventh graders...and the video is of the 9th graders...koreans loveeeeee taking pictures but get super shy...so thats basically why the girls are covering up their faces haha

oh and you should check out my video bar on the side of the page cause i posted a video of me and jen in the seoul subway and me and ash in gangnam eating some korean street food...but here are the links just in case you can't see the videos on the side of the page:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK0nJbkQGM8&feature=channel_page and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBBeld8GEaM&feature=channel

sooooo the rest of the pictures are from just hanging out with friends...except that the koreans you see are these really cool bankers we met and one went to temple university and the other lived in africa for two years...really cool, interesting people...and they speak fluent english...sooooo nice to not have to communicate via broken english

ok im very tired and i have work in the morning...

miss you all a lot during this christmas time....thinking of you all and i hope you are enjoying winterrrrr xoxoxoxoxoxo
much love
reen


sports dayyyyyyyy
he is always so lively in class...its great
they were insistent upon me taking a picture but got soooo shy
koreans always take pictures holding up the peace signs for some reason...how miley cyrus of them...
our school playground...the gym teacher in the red pants used to be a korean model...oooo la la hahaha
i got to wear sweats that day wooooo
my friend steven's bday...actually it weird that im holding a sparkler in this picture...they seriously scare me
my friend ryan
ashley, caroline, and sarah...ash is going to guam with me and sarah is coming to india!!!
our korean friends...oh we were at their weird costume work party which obviously explains the jumpsuit kahn is wearing....
so steven and i have been taking pictures of me covering his beard for months now and he finally cut it on his birthday wooooooo
so we always go out for wings on tuesdays and my friend rob decided to organize a wing eating contest...the winner ate 80 wings to win...and out of the 11 people that competed they consumed a total of 429 wings during one football game..that's seriously beyond disgusting
the traditional korean folk village
we are idiots and decided to go when it was 10 degrees F....clearly we only lasted for 2 hrs....and a lot of that time was spent eating soup....