No, I'm not almost 2
months late with this post! I promise!... I'm only a week and a half late ;) Korea, in accordance
with the rest of Asia, celebrates the lunar new year more than the 'normal' new
year. Actual New Year was also
celebrated with a countdown down town but Lunar New Year is considered a more
important holiday and we got 5 days of work to celebrate! But let's recount
December 31st. After work, my
co-workers and I hoped in taxis and got down town for 11:30. We wove our way
through the crowd of Koreans that were squeezed into a small square with a stage
in the middle. There was a K-pop singer on the stage and you could write a
message on a balloon to release into the sky at midnight. We weren't overly interested in the singer
and weren't overly enthusiastic about being shoved around by other people so we
ducked out of the square before midnight. We slipped into a small mart and
grabbed bottles of soju and had our own little celebration when we heard the
cheering from the square. We then headed down to the bar area and hung out at
the foreigner bar. I, in classic Keryll fashion, left the bar after a short
stay and walked the hour home (starting off in the wrong direction, of
course). So, overall, not overly
exciting or festive. Koreans just don't
know how to throw a party… Lunar
New Year ,설날, was also
pretty quiet, though it's possible I was just looking in the wrong places…I took at trip up to
Seoul with some friends for the 5 days we had off. The bus ride to took about
3-4 hours, which wasn't too bad. We stopped for food halfway between point A
and point B for a washroom break and food.
We had grabbed some roasted potatoes (which were not as exciting as we
were hoping). When we got back on the
bus, an old couple sitting across the aisle from us pulled cobs of corn out of
their bags and had a lovely little munch session as we continued on our
journey. This seemed like a strange
travel food to me and my students have since confirmed that this was not
normal. However, on the return trip, I
did buy a cob of corn at the rest stop… It was rubbery and cold and had very
little flavour… Quite disappointing! Seoul itself was
awesome! We got there Saturday afternoon
and walked around Sincheon, a shopping area near two of the Universities. The main goal of our trip was to eat as much
'foreign' food as possible while we were there since anything but Korean food,
burgers and pizza are rare to find at a decent price anywhere else in this
Country. We started our gastronomically
amazing trip with some Indian curry and naan bread. The naan was strangely sweet, but I wasn't
surprised about this in the least.
Koreans have an aversion to anything salty (except seaweed) and they
casually drizzle everything in honey. We
also had Bingsu, which is the Korean equivalent to ice cream. It's essentially shaved ice with condensed
milk with fruit toppings. It is
generally served with a red bean paste for added sweetening and flavour (I know
it sounds weird, and it is… Beans and ice cream… but you get used to it after
having it a few times. Haha. You can also get bean-filled pastries and
drinks!). The next day was my
birthday, so I decided to be a princess and spend a few hours walking around Gyongbok
palace. We got there just in time to see
the changing of the guard. The palace
grounds were less colourful than usual since it's February. The usually green lawns and flowering gardens
were brown, but it was still enjoyable to walk around and take a look at the
old buildings. We also saw many girls
dressed in the traditional Korean hanbok dresses. We later discovered that there was a
promotion on where people in traditional dress could get their pictures taken
inside one of the rooms on the palace grounds. Once we had
exhausted our photo walking options at the palace, we followed the sound of
distant drums to a New Year celebration just outside of a museum. We watched the dancing and listened for a
bit, then moseyed on into the museum.
They had an exhibit devoted to the Japanese-Korean food trade. Since Japan occupied Korean at one point,
many foods and traditions were exchanged and adopted by the two countries. It was interesting to see the differences in
eating styles and general food preparations… though slightly strange… The rest
of the museum was about Korean history respectively. Once we were
satisfied that there was nothing else left for us to do up at the palace, we
went to Insadong to do some souvenir shopping :) We then went over to Itaewon
for dinner. Itaewon is THE foreigner
food area in Seoul. We went on a mild scavenger hunt to find a Mexican
restaurant which was in a make-shift location above a stripper joint (called
big jugs). It was amazing. I have never
been happier to eat a burrito in my entire life. After that, we followed our noses/carefully
laid out map to a pie bakery where we carefully selected a nutritional
breakfast for the next morning. Hehe. Over the next few ,
we managed to have coffee in the Hello Kitty Café and the Nature Café which has
sheep! Though not as exciting as the Dog and Cat Cafés, these were still
interesting to see. We also spent a good
amount of an evening at a Canadian bar.
Situated in Itaewon (of course), we ate dinner at the Rocky Mountain
Tavern. Not only did they have Moose Head, but it was wing night!! We got the
classics; honey garlic (literally, honey and garlic), buffalo and BBQ, but we
also went full out Canadian and also sampled one of their beaver sauces! Maple mustard. Heavenly.
We were surrounded by foreigners, they had pictures of the RCMP on the
wall, they had a hockey game playing on the TV… It felt like home. We were so
happy being there, we pulled a Scrabble board out of the
bookcase in the corner and sat there for a few hours playing games :)We also went to the
Trickeye museum which was not as exciting as I was hoping, though still pretty
fun. And, of course, an
excursion with me wouldn't be complete without an incomprehensible meandering
into uncharted territory… My lovely friend, who had been playing tour guide
all week, allowed me to aimlessly wander after a stroll through the Ewha Women's
University grounds. Though we started in
a well populated down town area, I some how managed to lead us into an…
industrial… suburb… area with nothing of interest. We found a station that got us onto a
commuter train that lead us back onto the main subway route but my friend was
amazed at how I had managed to get us lost so thoroughly. Needless to say, after that I was no longer
allowed to navigate… Haha Overall, it was an
awesome trip! Happy New Year(s)!
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