Keeping with my plan of doing something new every weekend, I will be spending my very first Seonal with Brandi and Yong Suk at his family's home in Haenam, a small town outside of Mokpo, which is roughly an hour south of Gwangju on the coast. I am honored to have been invited to such an important family holiday, as Seonal is just like Chuseok. It is a three-day holiday in Korea and people all over Korea travel home to spend time with family. Also like Chuseok, it revolves around the lunar calendar, and generally falls on the day of the second new moon after winter solstice. It's also another big gift-giving holiday, and stores everywhere have the same gift sets that I saw around Chuseok. Spam and cooking oil are popular gift sets, as well as honeyed red ginseng. I received another [quite expensive] box from the owner of my school on Thursday, and while the candies aren't exactly my favorite, it was really nice to receive such a traditional gift.
We will stay one night at a love motel (more on that below) in Mokpo and travel into Haenam for most of the day Sunday and a few hours on Monday before heading back to Gwangju Monday evening. I'll get to help in the preparation of different traditional foods, such as 산적 (san jeok) and 떡국 (ddeokguk). 산적 is a traditional food prepared kebab style, with meat, ddeok (rice noodle) and vegetables cooked on a stick. 떡국 is the Korean equivalent to the American black eyed pea soup. It is a soup with various vegetables and sliced ddeok, and in addition to bringing luck, eating it on New Year's Day makes you one year older. I am not looking forward to this because I don't really like ddeok, but I don't want to be rude so I'll have some anyway. It also means I will be turning 30 in Eastern age. How cool is that? New Year's celebration and birthday party all rolled into one! Who doesn't like a party?! I'm excited.
So back to this 'love motel' stuff. Sure there are regular hotels, but most small motels in Korea are love motels. It may sound sketchy, but it's big business and completely understandable when you realize that an entire families live in such small apartments, most not much bigger than my own. While Koreans book the motels on an hourly basis, most foreigners take advantage of the cheap rates when traveling around the country. Most have beds while some sleep their occupants on the floor of the room. Again, this is not strange to Koreans, as most prefer to sleep on the floor anyway. It's usually heated, and sometimes more comfortable than the beds themselves. (Considering I can unzip my mattress and see the springs, it's definitely not the Serta plush pillowtop I left behind in the states and probably cost twice as much.) Also, the motels are quite clean. Yes, the halls are dimly lit and they have vending machines for things you'd never expect to see in vending machines, but hey, this is Korea: land of the highly conservative except when it comes to that. It makes me smile, and that's what life is all about.
And what about this Year of the Dragon? What does that mean? This year is the year of the water dragon, and the dragon is an intelligent and laborious worker who never puts aside work, although this sometimes leads him to excesses. The water dragon has enough courage to face challenges and easily finds weak points on his way to success. Think of a dragon that never turns down a challenge, treads heavily and often breaks things in the process, and I can see exactly where the dragon gets these character traits from.
What Chinese Zodiac animal are you? I am the Pig, and just like the character traits of my solar astrological sign of Gemini, the traits of my Chinese sign were written with me in mind. I like these lines the best: 'People of the Pig type are the ones who everyone admires most. Everyone can make a list of the Pigs in their life - aren't they the nicest, most loving and scrupulously caring people around?'
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