Written January 12, 2010:
New Year's Eve has been the source of major celebration throughout most of my childhood. Not least because it constituted fifty percent of all my annual celebrations, the other fifty forfeited to teenage angst when superstition convinced me my birthday was cursed. Additionally, by creating a remarkable experience, I find it much easier to catalogue my memories of the previous year between the bookends of midnight magnificence.
Finding myself on the opposite side of the planet and in perfect position to welcome a new decade a full fourteen hours ahead of schedule, I decided to keep with the spirit of "when in Rome" and kick it Korean on the New Day. They regularly commit to traveling to a small inlet on the West coast where the sunrise and sunset can be seen over the West Sea and purportedly celebrate this phenomenon from sunset to sunrise on New Year's Eve.
Thirty-five minutes subway, two-and-a-half hours train, forty minutes taxi, and we were shouting "Happy New Year!" while leaping out of the cab to walk a few feet more to huddle 'round one of several bonfires and listen to talented and beautiful Korean singers butcher Mariah Carey Christmas songs. Candles, fireworks, miniature hot-air-balloons carrying New Year's wishes to the heavens, and celebratory toasts of soju were shared by all. For an hour. Then the lights went down, the stage was cleared, and the fires were quelled. Four hours of walking in sub-zero temperatures on the only road in search of the ever elusive vacancy found us back where we began, passing out around a small heater with dozens of friendly, monolingual Koreans who graciously shared their hot tea and sweeter than sweet potatoes until seven-thirty finally came around and we all stood on the dock to witness a very cloudy sunrise. Tenderly treading on frost-bitten and tired limbs, we trekked towards the bus stop only to find that they weren't running due to treacherous conditions. By the way, this is the coldest winter Korea has seen in seventy years, not to mention the most snow in almost a century. If it weren't for bad luck...
In the pits of despair, I asked a stranger on the street in my limited Korean if she knew the number for a taxi service that may brave the conditions (ok, all I said was, "Excuse me, ma'am...taxi?" in Korean and motioned dialing on my cell phone, but "brave the conditions" was implied). She said, "Hang on," in English, which is a small but rare colloquialism for non-native English speakers. She runs to an old woman taking baby steps with a cane on the ice and exchanged a few words before running back and hustling the four of us towards her car. "You need to go to Seocheon station? We'll take you." she says in impeccable English. So we cram her family of five and us four into a compact SUV and drive for two hours in the snow-impaired traffic to the station only to have the old lady with the cane (who turns out is the stranger's mother) insist on feeding us breakfast. So we take a detour to their house, feast upon a spectacular New Year's breakfast Korean-style with hot soup and rice dumplings with succulent fried fish, rice, and of course kimchi, and rush back to the station to catch an 11:30 train back home. Kindness is universal.
Since that unique New Year's experience, I have climbed three mountains, witnessed a relatively intimate performance of Muse, and perused masterpieces of Monet and Picasso on display at the Seoul Arts Center. This Saturday I'm taking a ferry to Fukuoka on the coast of Japan before taking a train to Kyoto, Kobe, and Hiroshima, respectively, before returning on Thursday to catch some zzz's before bouncing to Hong Kong on Friday and returning in time for classes the following Monday.
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