Moley Christmas

In Korea, planning for Christmas proves to be a disaster nearly every year. My first Christmas in Korea wasn't a big deal, as I was due to return to North America a mere two weeks after Christmas anyway. Nevertheless, it wasn't really the same not having family around, not having a Christmas tree, and eating kimchi chigae in lieu of Christmas dinner.

My second year in Korea, I had a Scrooge of a boss who didn't feel the need to grant me any time off for Christmas. I was allowed one week of vacation at the beginning of December (he purposefully chose that week because it wasn't the two weeks I had requested) and since I didn't consider that enough time to go back to North America (24-hours of travel both ways isn't much incentive to go back for a short time), I went to the Philippines instead and celebrated Christmas day with a group of other stranded expats when I returned to Korea.

My third Christmas in Korea was actually spent in Indonesia, although it was almost cancelled one week prior in a moment of nostalgia and homesickness (a look at my bank account and the thought of jet-lag prevailed, however). My Indonesian Christmas turned out to be a good one, as it was the day Ken proposed, so I really can't complain.

This year I solemnly vowed to come home for Christmas, no matter what stood in my way. I've been looking forward to a traditional Christmas all year, as I haven't had one with my family in three years. I didn't take into account, however, that airfare might shoot up to about $2,500 for a ticket to Detroit. That, on top of the promise of being jet-lagged the entire holiday, caused me to rethink my previous vow. Then I started the application process for residency in Canada and realized I wouldn't be able to legally work in Canada for awhile after my arrival, thus creating a greater need to penny-pinch. Needless to say, Christmas this year was starting to look like a bleak, two-week vacation of sitting in gloomy Korea, missing my family and feeling sorry for myself. That is, until some friends of mine found super cheap tickets to Shanghai!

Now, I've already been to Shanghai some years ago (the above picture is legitimately mine). I really loved the city, plus it's far better than sitting around here doing a whole lot of nothing for two weeks, right? Right! Ken hasn't been to Shanghai, either, so it will be fun for him to see it. The other bonus included in this little excursion is a connection we have in Shanghai who is allowing us to stay in his apartment for free for a full week! The whole trip should cost about 1/5 of the price of one ticket home. It certainly won't be as nice as Christmas with the family, but it's something to look forward to at the very least. Especially the food!

Yum! (This picture is not legitimately mine.)

Now it's time to completely change topics. Let's talk about the moles on my face.

They have been a cause of vanity-related grief and annoyance my whole life, but never to the point of caring enough to have them removed. Within the last couple of years, however, they've started to grow (much to my dismay). Now, I'm quite vain and there is no denying it. My laziness, however, prevails over my vanity more often than not (hence my bad showering habits), even if my vanity turns into a legitimate health concern. After months (even years) of making excuses for why I couldn't have those pesky moles removed, I finally decided to make an appointment last week with a cosmetic dermatologist here in Korea... and last night was the big night! The doctor used a laser to remove all three moles from my face and I'm happy to report that I was in and out in only ten minutes, pain free! My face, on the other hand, is a huge mess at the moment. Since a couple of my moles were obnoxiously perched on top of a couple of veins, they bled quite a bit and now my face is covered in bandages. And this is how I will look for the next six weeks:

Lord only knows how I'll look once these things are taken off. Ironically, my number one concern has nothing to do with appearance at the moment. I'm too preoccupied with the reaction my face seems to be having to the bandage tape. It itches so badly that I kind of want to scratch my face off. And I can't touch it. Argh.

It's going to be a long six weeks, and I think I'm more excited about having my bandages taken off than I am about Christmas in Shanghai (but I'm still pretty excited about Shanghai).