What to Do for Thanksgiving

For Americans, this is one of the harder times of living in a foreign country. It’s the most family-oriented national holiday on the calendar, and most of us are away from our families.

Don’t despair.

There are a few things you can do.

My first few years here, my friends held a weekend Thanksgiving party, complete with turkey. If you or a friend has an oven you can set up a little potluck meal. It used to be that you could only find a turkey if you lived on a U.S. military base or knew someone who could hook you up with that AAFES turkey.

These days a couple of places like Hannam Supermarket near Itaewon and Costco carry a few turkeys. Since they’re imported and heavy, they’re quite more expensive, like in the 40,000-60,000 won range for a whole frozen bird. Yet if you’re having a party, people can chip in some money to pay for it.

If you don’t know how to cook a turkey, sites like Slashfood and Serious Eats have great tips, almost too many tips, for cooking a bird. Also the Good Eats episodes (which you can find online somewhere) about turkey are good.

If you are a loser and have no friends (just kidding) or lazy, Suji’s in Itaewon has a Thanksgiving turkey dinner. The political organization Republicans Abroad also is having a turkey dinner, if you can stand hanging around Republicans and eating at the same time.

I’ll update this when I find out more options.

Does anyone else know of any places to buy turkeys or eat Thanksgiving dinners?