새해복 많이 받으세요!

First, let's start with a totally pretentious comic-book style picture of me. This picture, aside from being pretentious, represents thing #678 that I love about my MacBook, the application PhotoBooth and its silly effects. 

So maybe, in direct contrast to what I just posted yesterday, I'll post more frequently, but shorter entries. That might be more effective. We'll see. 

Or it might just be that today is a special day, so it warrants a special entry. It's 설날! (I think I spelled that right.) So, today it really is Chinese New Year, and a very happy one to you! Seollal (English for the name of the holiday) is the beginning of the year according to the lunar calendar, and according to a random website, the most important Korean holiday. (Funny, I thought it was Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving.) See more background information on Seollal here, if you're interested: http://www.clickasia.co.kr/about/h0101.htm. The following will just be my immediate and completely uninformed impressions, so take them with a grain of salt. 

Since I still have a bit of a cold, I was pretty wary about what I might be forced to do today in the name of cultural immersion, but in fairness, I have to say, if I ever bothered to Google these things more than five minutes before the family comes to get me, I wouldn't be so surprised.  Apparently, whereas Chuseok is more about honoring dead ancestors, the more immediate focus of Seollal is honoring one's (living) elders, which in our case, is... crazy grandma. (A quick crazy grandma update: She's continued to be amused by me, and relatively warm towards me, although she still refuses to acknowledge that I don't know Korean, and still wakes me up to encourage me to eat meals that I don't want. Also, she recently gave me a sport little smack on the butt when I walked by her down the stairs, which was sort of exciting.) 

So there was a LOT of food in the living room, like on Korean Thanksgiving, and I was summoned, but then everyone (mom and kids) were in grandma's room with the door closed, so I just sat there, feeling thwarted. Then they opened the door, and I was invited in to bow to grandma, who gave me ten bucks. Apparently this is just a ritual: kids bow to elders and get money... $10 (or 10,000 Korean won) is apparently the normal high end. Then we ate 떡국 (rice cake soup), which isn't delicious, but which isn't so bad, followed by some nice fresh apple and pear which was delicious. 

After that we all just chilled out for awhile, and I had some a nice Skype conversation with my Dad. When one of the aunts arrived with her son and things started to get a little crazy, I went for a run, which was possibly slightly less miserable than yesterday, but then I came home to discover we had no hot water, so I took a freezing cold shower, which I think might be dangerous in 27 degree weather. Needless to say, I'm not cut out for Peace Corps. We just had a nice chat after an edible lunch, and soon the family will be heading out to visit graves and grandma, which I'm apparently excused from because I'm sick. Sweet!

I, on the other hand, might do laundry, might wash the dishes as a surprise for host mom, and will definitely go to Dunkin Donuts for a New Year's treat and screw around on the computer. Happy holidays indeed.