My 2nd New Year of the Year

This humble denizen of the Far East was walking about the high-heeled metropolis the other day when he ran into God. He asked God a question: What am I doing here in Seoul? God replied, I don’t know, you haven’t updated your stale, crusty old blog in a month so I wouldn’t know, would I? Thinking that his version of God was correct, though kind of fresh, he decided that it was high time to write more seeing as how Jehovah was keeping tabs on how often he was updating.

The awesome, octopus wrangling writer has been giving his blog a chance to recuperate while he has gone out into the land of the “morning calm” and planted, picked, and gleaned new stories for you, his discriminating audience, to sink their teeth into.  He does understand the insulin like need for you to read more of his deft descriptions of spicy, fibrous kimchi and trips to naked-time jimjilbangs (since most of my hits are for this reason).  There are so many things which he could casually enlighten you—such as no drinks at meal times, usually just a soup (unless you ordered the soup), or how sometimes he feels so welcomed to this wonderful (yet awkwardly racist) peninsula when old men tell him and his friend Sean (on their way back from Korean class) to be quiet on the bus when talking about Korean grammar in their best “inside voices.” So in short, sit back, pour yourself a beverage and prepare to be assaulted by stories so controversial and awesome that 3 of them have already been disqualified by the Olympics (written at the time of the Olympics).

Speaking of the Olympics, Kim Yu-na (Yu-na Kim) is all Korea can (could) talk about—well that and their hate of Ohno. Who is hated almost as much as the nation of Japan (and their figure skaters). We were returning from a kinder end-of-the-year party (with all of the kids in their prom best) when Kim Yu-Na came on the bus’ TV and all of the Korean teachers immediately gave her full attention and silence—which made all of us foreign teachers shut up and watch too. She skated beautifully and the Korean teachers did the Korean equivalent of high fives all around. Then it was the Japanese skater’s turn. Even though she did a stellar job (but not getting as many points) all the Korean teachers could do was berate her and say how she wasn’t as good as Kim Yu-Na. I’ll give them that Kim Yu-Na is a fantastic figure skater but damn are they… let’s say: prideful. On that note, it sucks that the US didn’t win hockey gold!

We had another new year. It seems like Korea can’t get enough of them, so they say we may have 5-6 more in the coming months. Actually, we celebrated Seollal (a pronunciation I really can’t, CAN’T get the hang of). This is virtually the same thing as what we know of as “Chinese New Year” or lunar New Year. This is traditionally a very family oriented holiday and as such my coworkers and I were left on our own to find activities to fill the void that was the long weekend.

Alex, Andrew and I went looking for traditional games and music that we had read about on the internet—cuz you know that’s the best way to find out anything. So we hopped on the subway and like Bugs Bunny, popped our heads out when we thought maybe we were in the right place, only to find, like an aforementioned rabbit, that we were not in our intended destination or rather our event was not in the right place. Eventually we found it, filled with traditional games, which we watched and took pictures of them since some of them seemed downright dangerous-- jumping on sea-saws (in heels) for example.

We took photos wearing some traditional hanbok (Korean clothing). I guess I was dressed as the guard, Alex as the king, and Andrew as the prince. I liked my hat. During this episode we met a Jordanian and an Egyptian and went with them downtown for some ice skating and New Year’s parades and festivities. Long and short of it: I can still ice skate and I got a strike bowling on ice (granny style).

I went to another Korean wedding, this time my Korean teacher's. My friend Gabi sang.

Some other weekend (it’s been so long since I even took down notes to write this thing) I went to a pension with mostly Korean coworkers and had a good time. It was lent to us by one of the student’s parents. We barbecued, drank beer, and had a good time. I think I ultimately like Korean and Chilean barbecues more than American ones—at least the ones I’ve been a part of. They do it more often and they taste better. No offense, cheeseburger.

Random animal parts of I’ve eaten:  Pork intestines, both long and short. Delicious. I’d have to say that I prefer the long intestine to the small but that’s just me.

Other news, my beloved Chile suffered a pretty gruesome quake, not far from where I studied and Taiwan got one too. I was kind of hoping to maybe go there for Buddha’s birthday in May. Any thoughts? As far as Chile goes, I’ve heard from most of my friends and host family down there and they seem to be okay but a lot of their stuff ended up on the floor. We also had a smaller quake and North Korea/China had a larger one. Good luck, US west coast.

I’ll end with a random commonly held Korean belief: ducks can not fly (at least very high). Wassup with that?!?

안녕!