Korea

Celebrating the New Year

Last night my wife and I joined another couple for a New Year’s celebration at the Seoul Plaza Hotel located across the street from Seoul City Hall.  We had a wonderful view of the festivities taking place in front of the city hall.  The evening was elegant and fun.  We feasted buffet-style and washed it down with wine.  We also enjoyed some entertainment.  We sat for a caricature artist who sketched comical renderings of our faces.  A magician performed some tricks at our table with coins and cards.  Although we couldn’t figure out how he created these illusions, I joked that it would have been an even bigger feat if he could magically speak English.  We also enjoyed a wonderful a capella quintet that sang a variety of songs in English and Korean, including Roy Orbison’s "Pretty Woman," one of my personal favorites.  At midnight, we rang in the new year with party poppers.  Mine was a dud, so I just clapped in lieu of setting off a noisemaker.
 
Our evening at the Seoul Plaza Hotel wound down about 12:30 a.m.  We then walked across the street and mingled amidst the throngs of partygoers who celebrated on the city hall plaza.  A rowdy group of people, mostly foreigners, gathered around a Korean hip hop-metal banging out unintelligible tunes.  A gaggle of Koreans lit fireworks, setting off noisemakers and Roman candles.  It  was both dangerous and chaotic, so we circled around the plaza to the outdoor ice rink.  Dozens of Koreans etched the ice with their skates.  I could almost hear the rink crying for a Zamboni machine to clean the ice.
 
Last night was the best New Year’s celebration we’ve had since 2002, when we ushered in the new year in Cairo, Egypt at the former royal palace watching Egypt’s most famous belly dancer perform over dinner.  Nights like these are rare.  Our New Year’s celebrations are most often spent at home watching "New Year’s Rockin’ Eve" or some other televised extravaganza.
 
Blog Notes:  I guess that people really do read this blog!  Tonight we had some friends over for dinner.  One friend who often reads World Adventurers noticed in my entry "Five Things You Don’t Know about Me" that I like baked goods, particularly snickerdoodles.  She showed up tonight with a plate full of snickerdoodles in tow and told me that she baked them because she read that I like snickerdoodles!  How about that?  Thank you for the snickerdoodles!  I will thoroughly enjoy them.  In a few days she will probably read this note and laugh at the irony that I’m thanking her on my blog for noticing!
 
So the Seattle Seahawks are back in the National Football League playoffs.  Unfortunately, they had the worst record of all teams in the playoffs, 9-7, and limped into the playoffs this year after a spectacular 13-3 season last year.  No one is holding much hope that they will go far in the playoffs.  They face the 10-6 Dallas Cowboys in Seattle next weekend.  While they beat the Cowboys last year in Seattle, the Cowboys should have won that game.  The ‘Hawks will have to play their best ball to beat the ‘Boys next weekend.  The one silver lining this year–the reigning Superbowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers will be sitting home this playoff season.  After so many obnoxious Steelers fans argued that the outcome of the last year’s Superbowl was fair and decried Seahawks fans as whiners for pointing out questionable officiating calls made during the game, it’s nice to see the Seahawks back in the hunt for a Vince Lombardi trophy this season while Steelers fans sit at home and cry.

Changdeokgung and Beewon

Yesterday my family and I visited Changdeok Palace in Seoul.  We took my in-laws, who are in town visiting for a month, because we had not yet visited one of Seoul’s main tourist attractions.  It’s hard to believe that it took us almost two years to visit the palace, but I’m glad we did.  The day was cool but not too cold, and the pathways were muddy, but we had fun on Christmas Eve day venturing to see one of Korea’s main palaces.
 
Changdeokgung, or the East Palace, was built between 1405 and 1412 during the reign of King Taejong of the Joseon Dynasty.  Located just to the east of Gyeongbok Palace, former home of the late Joseon monarchs, Changdeokgung served as the main palace of the Joseon Dynasty until 1872, when the seat of government moved to Gyeongbok Palace.  Changdeokgung has been damaged and destroyed several times by the Japanese, French, Chinese, and Americans, although Changdeokgung’s literature only notes that it was destroyed in 1592 by the Japanese.  The palace is perhaps most famous for "Beewon," or "Secret Garden," a sanctuary for the Korean king/emperor that included a library, fish pond, and fishing house where the king/emperor could catch fish from the fish pond.  In 1997, the palace became a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site.
 
For the shutterbugs:  I posted two new photo albums tonight.  One features photos from the Christmas season, including photos taken during our first snowfall, a Christmas concert, our son’s school’s Christmas production, and Christmas at home.  The second features photos from yesterday’s trip to Changdeok Palace.  Enjoy!
 
Blog Notes:  It completely slipped my mind that this blog is two years old!  On December 6, 2004, I started World Adventurers after MSN announced that it was offering a free blogging forum.  Happy birthday, World Adventurers.  217,000 hits later, it’s still going strong, although the author hasn’t had much time to write lately.  I’m hoping to use the holiday to make up for lost time.  Thanks for stopping by as faithfully as ever, Dear Reader.
 
"Girl in the Rain," November’s featured blogger, has cursed me by forcing me to join a game of "meme."  Because it would violate the unwritten meme code of ethics, I apparently can’t add any tags back to her blog, so you’ll have to hunt and peck in the archives for the link (hint: Visit the sparse November archives).  OK, Girl in the Rain!  I’ll give you a hard time at work tomorrow for clogging up the blogosphere and will take up the challenge you have lain at my virtual feet like a cyber-gauntlet: 
Name “Five Things You Don’t Know About Me,” and then tag five others. 
OK, I’m game.  Let me think about it, and I’ll write about this in the next couple of days.  The five tagged people will come from a list of people I’ve featured in the past.  Or, if you prefer, I can tag you, Dear Reader, if you volunteer.  That would be much better then spamming five of my good friends!

Glad to be here

I read that weather conditions in the Seattle area have been atrocious and that the power is off for about 1.5 million people living in the area.  Apparently the number without power has decreased to about 950,000, but that’s still a large number of homes.  It reminds me of the Winter of 2003, when the power went out in our Seattle metro neighborhood no less than three times, once for about two days.  Life was miserable.  Life is bearable in Seattle during the winter when the power is on; without it, life is untenable.  While arguably better than living in areas that deal with large snowfalls, the cold, damp conditions that seep into Seattle-area homes during a blackout are miserable for people not accustomed to such wretched, sustained weather conditions.
 
Well, I’m thankful we’re here in Seoul now!  We could be in Seattle–we’ll be there in about two months.  Although the weather in Seoul is not known for being kind, it has been unseasonably mild here, for the most part almost enjoyable.  Yes, it is true, in spite of what my wife wrote earlier this month.  I’m glad we’re here in Korea enjoying the crisp, mild winter weather conditions.