Lunar New Year in Busan

If you do not live in a country that celebrates Lunar New Year, you probably went about your day as usual on January 31st. However, in Korea and several other Asian countries, Seollal (설날) is a much bigger deal than Solar New Year on January 1st. Since it landed on a Friday this year, most Koreans got Thursday and Friday off work, and thus enjoyed a four day weekend. This is a huge travel holiday and trains, buses, and flights were booked within hours of being released.

Most Koreans spend the say with their family. Younger children will dress up in hanbok, or traditional Korean clothes. They bow to their elders and wish them a Happy New Year (새 해 복 많이 받으세요). In return, their parents/grandparents/etc will give them some amount of money. I asked my students about this custom, thinking they would be really excited to get money and gifts in return for a simple bow. It turns out, most kids have to hand the money immediately over to their parents who put it in the bank for them. Or in their words, "mom take."

They also eat tteokguk (떡국) or rice cake soup. Once you have eaten tteokguk, you are another year older. Korean age is different from American age. Usually, you can just add two years to your American age and you will have your Korean age. The difference is caused by two things. First, a baby is one year old at birth because they count the time in the womb. Second, you don't gain a year on your birthday, but instead with every new year (and bowl of tteokguk). This caused much confusion when students the size of thimbles told me they were ten years old, but in reality they are eight (but still more thimble-sized than any eight year olds I have ever met).

Tteokguk

Anyway, we had to take advantage of a four day weekend. So what started as a coworker trip merged with the Gawi Bawi Go! group to create a massive trip to Busan. Busan is in the very southern part of Korea. It is convenient to travel from Seoul to Busan on the KTX, or high speed train. However, all tickets sold out within several minutes. We were able to make the trip via bus, which usually takes about 4 1/2 hours, but with holiday traffic took us about 7 1/2 hours to arrive in Busan. Luckily, we left early in the morning so we rolled into the beach town at 2pm on a gorgeous Thursday.

 The weather in Busan was glorious compared to Seoul: sunny and 50-60s during the day. It was so great to wear Birkenstocks and feel sand on my feet. I fooled myself for just a second that I was back in Santa Barbara.

We reserved a penthouse from airbnb on the 16th floor of an apartment building overlooking Haeundae Beach. It was relatively cheap split between 15 people and definitely worth the luxury.

View from our room

The second floor windows

The living room, from the second floor

The second floor kitchen, not that we needed two kitchens...

Haeundae Beach

	Relaxing with makkeolli while being serenaded by Emily on the ukulele Playing some cards One of many group ukulele sessions

Sunrise the next morning on the beach

It was a little difficult to find stores open on Seollal, but we bought some groceries and whipped up a delicious breakfast. Audrey even made us some tteokguk for the occasion. It was delicious! ...And we were officially one year older.

Audrey, our adorable Korean coworker

That afternoon, we headed to Haedong Yonggungsa 해동 용궁사 Temple

Stairs to Yonggungsa Temple

Bryan, my coworker, buying some street food.

The most famous fish market in Busan is called Jagalchi 자갈치.

This vendor looked so nonchalant smoking his cigarette.

Step right up.

Bethany and I got our Korean names engraved on dojang (seals). For some reason, several Korean men gathered to watch the process. One weird guy started photographing us.

This is your typical food tent, where you can get delicious Korean street food: tteokbokki (rice cakes in red pepper sauce), twigim (like tempura), sundae (blood sausage), kimbap (like sushi usually filled with vegetables), odeng (fish cake), and a lot more.

After the fish market, we were all craving fresh seafood. So we went to Taejongdae for barbeque clams. Taejongdae has rows and rows of BBQ clam tents that serve various types of seafood that you cook at your table.

There is nothing better than eating fresh caught seafood, sitting in plastic chairs on a floor made of stones, overlooking the water, and smelling the most indescribable aroma of Korean sauces sizzling over hot coals. 

The first course: mussels

The second course: clams two ways

The women workers were buzzing around us constantly, putting more shells on the fire, dishing out cooked ones, and giving us eating tips (using mussel shells as a clamp to hold onto hot clam shells).

사랑방 = love room, apparently the name of our restaurant.

Rows of other clam tents lining the beach.

And the next morning, it was time to head home. We took a final group picture to say goodbye to our beloved penthouse apartment. 

 

We had some time to kill in Gimhae before the bus left, so we rented bikes and rode around the bike-friendly city. It was glorious and took me back to college and biking around Santa Barbara.

 Farewell, Busan. It's been real. Back to Seoul, the cold, and work.

My New Years Resolution...

...is to come up with a creative resolution by December 31, 2014. I can't remember the last time I made a New Year's resolution. I think I just prefer to commit to things at random times of the year.

I worked on New Year's Eve, much as I do every other day. Emily and I headed to Gangnam after work to meet up with some friends and ring in the new year in Gangnam style (I couldn't resist).

"Brilliant" Countdown

We passed around a bottle of makkoli (alcoholic drink made from wheat and rice that has a milky color), and waited for midnight. Some guy was handing out flashing bunny ear headbands to everyone in the crowd. We all had too big of heads, leading to warped ears. Stupid foreigners.

Sorry there are no pictures of me, I was always the one taking them...

A random Korean singer

Earlier, Emily and I had gone to a market to find champagne, thinking that no New Year's celebration is complete without some bubbly. She ended up buying a disgusting $5 bottle of "sparkling wine," which we ceremoniously opened after midnight. Meanwhile, some of our friends were at a wine bar, where they met some French flight attendants. Later, most of the employees of Air France it seemed met up with us in Gangnam. It turns out the Frenchies were classy (as French people tend to be) and brought with them several bottles of champagne (actually from Champagne, France), including Moet & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot. So we ended up getting our champagne after all!

We were hungry after awhile and went to a Korean fast-food place called Jaws, which specializes in a few bunsik dishes and is known for being very spicy. Probably the most common street food in Korea is called 떡볶이 (tteokbokki), which is soft rice cake and fish cake in a red chili pepper sauce. We ordered tteokbokki with twigim (like tempura) and soup. It was oh so delicious and super spicy!

Then we went to a 노래방 (noraebang) to kill some time before sunrise. It is a tradition in Korea to watch the first sunrise of the new year, and a few of us were set on doing just that. After a few hours of singing and a Taco Bell run, it was close to 5:30am and we still had two hours to stay awake. It was pretty much torture at this point, but Emily, Wally, and I decided to suck it up and head to Namsan Tower. We planned on taking the gondola up to the top of the hill, but the taxi driver dropped us off in some random location. We ended up walking like zombies in a procession of Koreans all the way up the hill.

Must...Sleep...Taking the subway to Myeongdong

The trek up the hill

We didn't realize half of Seoul would be there

And finally...the sunrise over the mountains

Right around 7:45am, the sun appeared over the mountains. While every person in sight aimed their camera at the view, we were guzzling grape juice and dozing off at a restaurant table. I don't know if it was worth it, but I am glad I can say I was among the first people in the world (being in the eastern-most time zone) to behold 2014.

A Brief Holiday Greeting

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas ended up feeling like Christmas despite being away from so many friends and my usual family gathering in Iowa. I think this was mostly due to our special Christmas events at school. On Monday and Tuesday before Christmas we had short classes to make time for crafts and games for each group of students. We made ornaments out of pipe cleaners and beads, wrote wishlists, and played school-wide BINGO.

There seems to be some general confusion in Korea as to how to play BINGO, mostly because BINGO in Korea refers to what we know as tic-tac-toe. When we played (actual) BINGO for Christmas, every class got a giant BINGO board and the director read words over the PA system. Instead of drawing words from a hat, he just read a BINGO board straight out, so in some of my classes, we got instant BINGO. Just not fun. And he read "free space," which was just adorable. Not to mention his (mis)pronunciations of some of the words made me want to hug him.

These are actually my three most impossible girls. Don't let looks fool you.

A surprising number of students demanded a Christmas present from me, which I was not expecting. One girl named Bini actually got really worked up and threw a mini fit when I told her I didn't have a present for her. I was also joking with Sophia and Julie that I would buy them whatever they wanted for Christmas. I told them a smart phone and tablet would be no problem. Then they got really offended when I told them I was just kidding. I figured that was pretty obviously a joke, but I should know by now that a lot of my jokes are lost on my students.

I did get two huge tins of Christmas butter cookies from two of my students. They also wrote me cards, and I loved Daniels so much...

"Dear medlin.E
Hello this is Daniel in Nina
class. I like to study english
in your class. I envy you
because tall and thin. Thank you
for teaching me.
I want wisH you a merry
Cristmas.
from Daniel"

I can always rely on my students to give me the best compliments and also the worst comments. "Teacher, why do you always wear the same shoes?" "Teacher ugly" (just a common greeting) "Teacher dirty" (the two most commonly used words by elementary school students)

Besides my massive excess of butter cookies, I also received random offerings of snacks and candy. Everyday, my students hand me little candies or shrimp crispy things, or whatever they happen to be eating. But on Christmas I think they felt a little more giving. Poor Dylan I'm pretty sure just handed over his snack for the day (a granola bar) when he saw that other students were giving me things.

My drama queens doing some serious model poses. I was uncomfortable.

 

 

 

 

Sassy Sophia and Emily abusing Emily

Showing off their pipe cleaner bracelets

I am Dylan. Hear me roar.

We also had a gift exchange with all of the teachers and staff. The director got pretty territorial over some gifts, so as with all disputes in Korea, we settled it with rock scissor paper (gawi bawi bo).

Gawi Bawi Bo!

메리 크리스마스 (meli keuliseumaseu)!

On Christmas Day, we had a dinner party potluck at Emily's apartment. Adam and Calum picked up rotisserie chickens at Costco, which were amazing! I made eggnog which I was extremely proud of. It was so much better than store bought. Pat on back. And Emily made everyone stockings with a Christmas poem and candy. She is the greatest! So Christmas was spent with good people, amazing food, and card games. Happy Birthday, Jesus.

The day after Christmas we started winter intensives (I teach two more classes a day, so seven total) and work 10-11 hour days. This is because students are on winter vacation so their parents enroll them in more academy classes. So much for the month-long vacation I am used to at home.