Happy Lunar New Year

Last week was another holiday in Korea, a rather important one: the lunar New Year or Seolnal in Korean :) I'd say this is one of the most important Korean holidays together with Chuseok - the Korean thanksgiving that I'd already written about.

Seolnal is a family holiday, a time to spend at home with your family. That's why most Koreans travel home to their parents' or grandparents' house to celebrate. And for the same reason, Seolnal can be really uninteresting or lonely holiday for foreigners here. In the past years I spent seolnal alone in my dormitory room... but this year, I got to experience it the way Koreans do, with my boyfriend's family. ^^

Even though New Year's - the 1st day of the new year is just one day, most Koreans get three whole days off, at least all schools are closed for three days. And luckily this year, it was Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so my boyfriend didn't have to work for 5 days straight. ^^ 

On Wednesday we went to my boyfriend's parents' house for lunch. His sister was there too and it was nice to see her again. His mom prepared LOTS of food and it was all delicious, especially tteokguk. Tteokguk is a rice cake soup and it is always eaten on New Year's day, because it is believed that it brings you good luck in the new year if you eat it on Seolnal. Rice cakes are usually white, but they can be different colors too and in the tteokguk that my boyfriend's mom made, they were yellow, purple, red, green etc. so it looked really nice and colorful :) It looked so yummy that I didn't remember to take a photo of it before I was half way done already.

Another thing associated with tteokguk is getting older :) I don't remember if I'd mentioned this before or not, but Koreans count age a bit differently. Here, when you're born, you're already a year old, so in Korea, you're always a year older than you are in in the West. Another thing is, you don't age on your birthday, but everyone gets a year older on Korean New Year's - Seolnal. In fact, it's said that you gain a year after finishing your tteokguk. :) In Korean language growing a year older is even expressed as 'eating another year' - 'hansal ul meokda'. Someone even sent me this cute picture while wishing me a happy new year's. What's written on the spoon is 'hansal' meaning 'one year' or 'another year', showing that even if we don't want to, we all get a year older again :)

So until my birthday in July, I am again two years older in Korea than I am in my country... Korean age counting system sucks :P

On Seolnal children usually put on Korean traditional clothing - hanbok and then wish their parents and grandparents a happy new year while performing a traditional bow for them. Parents and grandparents then reward this gesture by giving them a special new year's pocket money called 'sebet-don'. I didn't wear a hanbok since I don't own one anyway ;) But I did get a chance to try on several different kinds of them in the past.

I didn't perform a traditional bow either, but I did buy some cake for my boyfriend's parents as I didn't want to visit their house empty handed. Unfortunately, I didn't know my boyfriend's sister would be there too, so I didn't have anything for her but some Slovenian candy. :( But anyway, this year I received sebet-don too. ^^ I received cash from my boyfriend's mom and two movie tickets from my boyfriend's sister. ^^ It was great that I got to experience Seolnal the Korean way, with tteokguk and sebet-don and everything. The best part was, I didn't feel like a foreigner, but like a part of a Korean family. It was amazing. ^^

After the delicious lunch, my boyfriend and I went for a short walk because we were so full. Then his mom played saxophone for us. ^^ And later we went to see the new family firm that is being built nearby and should be done by this summer. It looks really nice.

In the next days we went to use those movie tickets, we relaxed at home, went to a birthday party of my boyfriend's friend from the band, ate lots of yummy food, did some shopping and even went on a one day trip to Gwangju. But I will write about the trip in my next post.

Even if you don't celebrate Korean New Year's I still wish you lots of luck in the new year, as Koreans say: SaeHae Bok Manhi Badeuseyo.

It's Valentine's Day :)

In Korea Valentine's day is pretty much all about chocolate :) But sadly it's mostly meant for boys. It may sounds weird, but in Korea (and I think it was the same in Japan) on Valentine's days it's girls who buy chocolate for boys and not the other way around. Or they bake them some cookies or something. I think a lot of guys around here prefer to see girls give them something they made themselves. But girls shouldn't complain, since we get to receive presents on White day which comes a month later on March 14, except that on that day boys buy us candy instead of chocolate, which is even better for me :)

So as a good girlfriend that I am ;) I also went to buy some chocolate for my boyfriend. I went to Lotte mart since it's the closest shopping mall around here. Sadly Korea doesn't have that many good chocolate to choose from. I'd rather just give him Milka, 'cause it's really good and he loves it, but it's pretty much impossible to find here. Homeplus, which is another huge shopping mall, has a bit more to offer since it's owned by British Tesco. But still. Sure you can get famous brands like Lindt, Ferrero Rocher, Guylian etc. but it's usually quite expensive.

Lotte mart was surprisingly crowded for a weekday and everyone was crowding around the chocolate stand. A lot of chocolates were already wrapped and decorated with small ribbons so I chose some of those because they looked nicer. Toblerone even had a special Valentine's day edition so I bought that one too. Also, I saw a couple of guys buying chocolate and wrapping papers and boxes, so I guess it's not strictly just a one way thing. :) And ya, sure a lot of flowers and plush toys get sold on Valentine's but chocolate is still the most popular.

I also made some chocolate by myself. I got this cute chocolate making mould for Christmas and I finally got a chance to try it out. You need about 200g of chocolate but I had only 70g packages so I used three different types: milk chocolate with acai berries, 70% cacao chocolate and white chocolate. I just melted the chocolate and put it in the mould and I got this cute little owl shaped pieces of chocolate. White chocolate didn't turn out so well, I don't know what I did wrong, but white chocolate always seems a bit harder to work with than milk or dark one. Anyway, my boyfriend loved it. ^^ i knew it - Korean boys really do prefer to get homemade sweets. ;)

My boyfriend and I are quite busy this Valentine's day so I couldn't plan anything special. He worked till 3pm and then we had to go meet someone downtown. Afterthat we went to eat some yummy galbitang, which is a special soup with beef meet inside. And now we're at a bar where my boyfriend's band is getting ready for their Valentine's day gig. They're pretty good and the best thing is, they write all their songs themselves :) I already mentioned in one of my last posts that I'd also be participating in their Christmas concert. Well I did and it was so much fun ^^ I was so nervous at the rehearsal but as soon as I got on the stage for real, I just sang and had fun :) I'd also share a video with you, but I realize I'm not the best singer and there were quite a few notes that weren't right :) But I felt really proud of myself nevertheless, just for getting the courage to get up on the stage and sing with a band :) I got a big applause too. Although it's quite possible the Koreans were more impressed by my Korean speaking abilities rather than by my singing, but it doesn't matter. ;)

This time I'm not singing since I haven't prepared any new songs yet, but I might perform again in March. This time it's just my boyfriend's band - Plastic Age.

Anyway that's all I wanted to write about Valentine's day. I can't write much 'cause I'm having problems sitting at my computer lately. I've had some lower back pain for a while which is also a reason why I haven't updated my blog in a while. But luckily I can write using my iPad ^^

Next week it's New Year in Korea, so check back next weekend to read about that. Today I hope you're all surrounded by people you love. Don't let this day make you feel depressed if you're single or can't be with the one you love, just treat yourself to something nice and do whatever makes you happy. Happy Valentine's day everyone. ^^