Ten Years, Ten Memories

 Next Tuesday marks the tenth anniversary of my arrival in Korea as a terrified greenie - a fact that astonished both myself and my Dark Lord and Master (who was the largest part of the reason I was terrified back in those days - it took me a while to realize he was just a big bunny rabbit) when we discussed it on my way through Seoul at the beginning of July.  To celebrate, I'm setting the Wayback Machine to count down a memory each day from each of those ten years to share with you....

The problem with doing one memory for each year you've lived abroad is that unless you moved at the beginning of January, you're really looking at 11 calendar years.  I've solved that problem by ringing in my first memory with the time we rang out 2004.  Another reason Korea was hard for me at first was because I didn't quite fit with the teachers who were at GDA when I got there.  One of the wonderful things about being Mormon, though, is you'll always have a second place to look for friends, and the Seoul English Branch is where I found my first friends overseas.  It was wonderful, because it had the eclectic mix of black sheep you expect to find teaching English in Korea, but with the added bonus of us all sharing the same standards.

We started our New Year's Eve at Bennigan's by Seoul Station, and then packed our way onto the subway to go to Jongno 3-ga.  It's an intersection in central Seoul that has a big bell tower named Bosingak, and that night it was packed with tons of people.  What would New Year's be without some fireworks, you may ask, and that's a great question - we obviously had some sparklers.  What the photo doesn't show you is that lots of people (including my friends) had Roman candles, which we were shooting into the air over this crowded intersection next to an old, wooden pavilion.

There was also swinging.  And swaying.  And music playing.  We were dancing in the street.  Over the three years I lived in Seoul I came to love their traditional drumming and dancing, and it was impossible to resist being swept up into the action.

How much do I love Korea?  SO much.  I've told you so many times you probably want to barf every time I start.  One of the many, MANY reasons is the fact that it's a night owl's paradise.  Not everything is open 24 hours, but it's damn close.  When everything finally ground to a halt in Jongno we went to Hongdae.  It's a university area and the only place I've really ever gone "clubbing."  We found a cafe and warmed up for a while before going to look for a DVDbang.  We picked out a couple of movies and split into the two rooms set up as personal home theaters.  Somehow most of us stayed awake - I remember the movie my group watched being really good.

We ended the night at the 63 building - a skyscraper in the financial district that has an observation deck.  We watched the first sunrise of 2005 from there, and I felt I was finally starting to feel at home in Korea. 

Love-Hate Relationship

First things first: thank goodness for McDonald's!  Before I write a single word about China and the Winter Wonderland that is Harbin, I have to confess that I ate at Maccas.  A lot.  Probably more than I have at any point since Cairo, and that was mostly because of the touch of a travel bug.  This time, I have no excuse.  The best one I can come up with was that it was Chinese New Year's eve when I got there, and nothing else was open.  But it didn't stop there.  Oh, no.  I had it for breakfast every morning, and for dinner every night.  Don't judge - I've been living in Mongolia for seven months now!!!
So, moving right along...

As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to spend my time off for Tsagaan Sar in Harbin, China.  I didn't think about it being Chinese New Year then, because everyone kept telling me they're never at the same time.  When I started seeing all my friends in Shanghers posting about their holidays, I figured it out, and got excited.  Nobody, but NOBODY does fireworks like the Chinese, and at no time is this as apparent as at Chinese New Year.  Dammit, I missed the place, although this trip made me realize exactly how much of a love-hate relationship I have with it.  I missed speaking the language (I still don't know much Mongolian, although I could still probably manage to order my father a beer).  I missed the stupid fast food, and dumplings and OH MY GOSH IS THAT A CARREFOUR?!?  I knew I'd miss things even as I was struggling to make my decision last year.  There were also things I definitely DIDN'T miss, but we'll come to those later.  My trip started off on such a great note (other than the taxi driver trying to rip me off on the way in from the airport) that I'm not quite ready to get negative. 

After finding the Macca's I started wandering up the main pedestrian thoroughfare in old Harbin.  It's a city with ties to Mother Russia, as you may pick up on from some of my photos.  During the day, it's nice, and you can read the plaques on the buildings (some of them beginning to crack with disrepair) to see who lived there, or what kind of building it was.  At night, it's pure magic, especially with the ice sculptures all lit up, like they are above.  That first night I was wandering with my camera, trying to take shots of fireworks, and I figured up to the river was the place to go.  I slid my way up the street...and I DO mean slipped.  I wanted to see if I actually needed my crampons before I put them on.  I did.  It was nerve-wracking.  I've fallen on my butt lots of times, but the expensive and shiny new camera around my neck might not be as durable as I am.  When I got up to the Flood Control monument there were people there SELLING SKY LANTERNS!!!!!  I've been obsessed with the dang things since watching Tangled and finding out they were real, and I finally got the chance to set one off.  Of course, being an idiot foreigner I had no idea what I was doing, but this sweet kid was kind enough to help me out, and we had a moment when it went soaring off where we high-fived and I said, "Hen hao!  Xie xie!" and she said, "Bu ke xie!" and I said, "Xin nian kuai le!" and she said, "Happy New Year!"  Some things are awesome in any language.

The old area of town sort of became my stomping grounds for the long weekend.  I logged a lot of footsteps over the four days - enough to make my feet ache and to convince me that I didn't need to go to the treadmill this morning (I probably wouldn't have made it if I wanted to).  Along one of the nearby streets I stumbled upon the old synagogue and Jewish school.  It seemed strange to me that a city which was so far from the middle of everywhere would, nevertheless, have such a cosmopolitan air.  I guess that's the Russian influence.  Shanghai, of course, is fairly cosmopolitan, but the Harbin...ers?  Harbinites?  Harbingers?  Whatever.  Their city had a nice feel to it.  Or, you know, as nice a feel as it can have, considering how freaking cold it was.  And it was.

I've got to say, I needed this break like a caffeine addict needs her coke.  It was good to get away, even if I'm REALLY tired today, but even more, I needed the chance to get out alone and prove myself against a new city...I haven't done that since last summer.  Seeing new things is fun, but the real thrill is proving to yourself that you are clever and observant enough to cope when you're by yourself.

I live for that shit.

Tsagaan Sar Celebrations

Well, we're finally getting to a holiday - just a long weekend, really, but any port in a storm.  The last month has been exhausting and if you haven't been able to tell by my random facebook posts and my tone on here, I've been a little...blah.  Last Saturday's Winter Palace visit didn't happen.  It's closed on Saturday (wtheck?)  And it turns out the wrestling I was hoping for is on Sunday, when I will be in Harbin, and even if I weren't, tickets sold out - you have to wait in line overnight in order to get them.  Overnight?  In this weather?!?  No thanks.  Disappointing, but no.  So I've been kind of disappointed but I'm thankful tomorrow's Friday.

The holiday in question is Mongolia's new year celebration, Tsagaan Sar.  It's one of the two big holidays celebrated here, so it's a pretty big deal.  There were all sorts of things going on at school this week - we had national dress day for Monday AND Tuesday (I didn't take any pics; I was sick Monday and couldn't be bothered Tuesday).  Last night the owner of the school treated us to a nice big dinner, so grub club was canceled.

The Mongolian teachers put together a presentation for our edumacation, and one of the things they pointed out was that it is auspicious to have a big Tsagaan Sar meal; if you don't, it means you will be hungry in the coming year.  I made sure to load up my plate with plenty of delicious khushuur and buuz.

To that end, the kids have been involved in a food drive for the past few weeks.  There are plenty of families that don't have enough, so the senior class has been coordinating a collection for them.  Here they are tallying the final results and organizing them for distribution.

Back in November the school collected Movember money, and some of that went to our Mongolian sister school.  They came to school today and performed dances and songs for us to say thanks.

They had the most amazing assortment of costumes.  Someone told me this afternoon that their dance coach makes them.  What a Herculean task that must be - I've stitched a belly dance costume or two in my time, and I cheat by using ready-made skirts.  I can't imagine trying to sew one of these beautiful costumes, but less all of them!

I love seeing the way Mongolians take traditional dress and update it to make it fashionable.  These dresses were probably the most gorgeous I've seen, although the cashmere companies here do their part, too (fashionable AND warm).  The performances were amazing, and it was a great chance to try out the action setting on my new camera...I got some great shots, if I do say so myself.  Next time, I'm going to go easier on it, though - I had 600 some pictures to sort through this evening.

Ironically enough, I won't be taking further part in the festivities.  I'm finally going to make it to Harbin to see the ice and snow festival.  And I just realized today that Tsagaan Sar coincides with Lunar New Year as Celebrated by the Chinese, so it may be a very loud vacation, but I am excited about the chance to see the fireworks, and my new camera backpack made it JUST in time, so I am ready to kick some travel butt.  Stay tuned.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot???

2010 rang in as the Evil One and I hopped out of the auto back from the church. I ran down the street to the guy selling heart shaped balloons and bought ten of them off him (a steal at $2 for the lot), with Evil trying to hurry me along so we could see the fireworks at the Taj next door from her balcony. When I bought the balloons I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them - what exactly do you do with a bunch of red, heart shaped balloons after the age of five??? - but in the elevator on the way up (let me tell you, ten balloons in an elevator is no small feat) I figured it out. We made wishes for the new year on them and released them off the balcony into the night.

Since I am NOT a math geek, I celebrated the beginning of the millenium at midnight 2000, which means that THIS is the beginning of a new decade for me. I gotta say, the last one was not bad - I spent the majority of it in relatively good shape, toured a lot of the world...okay, so it didn't have the fantastic music that the nineties can claim, and that decade also brought the Q girls into my life, although it was in the 00's that we came up with that title, and the 00's brought even more new and exciting friends into my life, so I can't complain too much.

I don't get too introspective on New Year's, and I don't want to start now. I don't make resolutions - not really. Personally, I find myself doing that around my birthday (and to a lesser extent, the anniversary of my baptism), and rather than resolutions, I make wishes, ones that I have a personal responsibility for bringing to pass. So my new year has already started - my new decades, my thirties, started five months back, and so far, I've gotta say they've been pretty great. I hope everyone else's goes the same way.