Lunar New Year

This last weekend (January 24-27) was the lunar new year in Korea. The lunar new year or "Seollal" is the biggest holiday of the year and is celebrated with festivals, dancing, a circus, special food, and ,of course, Korean booze. Our celebration began when we got some red ginseng "juice" from our hagwon. It's supposed to promote health, energy, longevity, and *eh hem*, "night power." It tastes really earthy, which makes sense since it comes from a root.

From Birthday Weekend

Later that day, one of my classes sang me happy birthday and got me a "birthday loaf." In Korea, bread is usually a part of dessert if it isn't used in the actual meal. The kids got me a loaf of french bread and you can see by the time I blew the candles out, it was soaked in wax. We ate the wax free bottom half after class.

From Birthday Weekend

Here is a picture of the whole class.

From Birthday Weekend

The teachers at work got a cake for me, which was a nice surprise.

The next morning, we met Colin and Sara in Anguk to check out some of the local galleries and coffee shops. Here's a picture of Savannah at one of those tiny shops.

From Birthday Weekend

The name of the place was "egg."

From Birthday Weekend

We managed to find a series of photos showing traces of the Korean War that can still be seen today. They didn't allow photographs, so this link will have to suffice.

We later found an interesting museum dedicated to owls. Apparently, some old lady went nuts and started collecting nothing but stuffed owls and owl related paraphanalia. When she died, a "museum" (single room with a bench) was opened in her honor. There were over 2,000 owls from 80 countries in that room. Once again, we weren't allowed to take pictures.


Next was a cruise over to Noryangjin (the fish market) for my birthday dinner. We had sashimi, oysters, steamed crab, and a spicy seafood soup. It was even more delicious than our last time there. Here is a video to help give you an idea of how large this place is. The stalls go on forever!

From Birthday Weekend

Later that weekend we went to one of the many traditional villages around Seoul to watch a mask dance. It was pretty cool. I'm afraid our little camera doesn't quite capture how neat of an experience it was.






The village had several booths set up. We could try Tteokguk which is a rice cake soup. It is said that when you eat this during Seollal, you become a year older.

There was a Mockalli tasting. Mockalli is an unfiltered rice wine. It tastes like someone mixed Sprite and Yogurt. Believe it or not, the stuff actually grown on you after a while.

There were paper flowers on display in one of the galleries.

These ladels are supposed to bring good luck in the next year.

Here is a child pounding rice that will be made into rice cakes.