New Year

Hello,

As promised (although somewhat delayed) here is an account of how I spent New Year over here.

So I had managed to get Hogmanay off, although everyone else ended up taking it off in my school too, which was nice, although I feel I may have sacrificed one of my coveted 5 "winter" days of holiday for nothing. I started the day late, probably rising around 2 in my apartment, and spoke to Canadian Colin and Neil about our plans for the night. We decided to start things off at mine with a few beers so the boys headed around at 6ish and we got stuck into a few OB's (my favourite local lager). Here's a pic of the lads.

I got the kilt on the go and we headed out into the night. I had made the journey into Seoul once before in my kilt for the Scotland game in November, so I was ready for the inevitable stares on the subway. And stare they did. When we got off at City Hall in Seoul, I was left on my own for 5 mins while the boys went for a pee, and the interest reached fever pitch. Lots of folk started taking photos......which is O.K. a couple of times but I felt a bit like Britney Spears, and I didn't want to end up in the same state as her so I started taking photos of the people who were taking photos of me. That soon scared them off. Here is a video I took whilst in the subway station.........

Once the boys had finished spending pennies we headed down towards Bosin-Gak, which is the focal point of the New Year celebrations in Seoul. It is basically a massive bell that dates from the 15th century, and nowadays is only struck once a year, at New Year. It was only around 10pm at this point, so we ducked into a bar for a few beers until around 11:30 and then headed out into the crowds. There were a lot of folk, not quite on the same scale as the Edinburgh Street Party but still pretty impressive. There were police EVERYWHERE, although they didn't really seem to be bothered. I asked one if i could take my (plastic) bottle of beer in with me, he said "No" but then I walked on anyway and nobody said anything about it for the rest of the night. That would not happen back home. Another thing that would not happen is the amount of fireworks being let off. You could buy these long tubes for 50p which then let off about 6 or 7 fireworks (i suppose they are like Roman Candles, although i'm not up on my firework types). I bought one after the Bells, it was quite fun to let off but if you aimed it at someone it could do some serious damage. Health and safety back home would have a fit!

We squeezed our way to reasonably close to the front of the crowd and got chatting to some Koreans (one of whom's birthday it was....they had brought a cake into the crowd.....madness) and waited...........

At midnight itself everybody went mental (but kind of just within their own groups, there was no communal hugging/kissing etc). Here is a video from just after the bells (or during it......you can hear the bell being rung) I must apologise for my use of the phrase "Jesus Christ" , but it was pretty amazing!

All the flashes you can see are the fireworks being let off. And I believe the person shouting "Booze, booze, booze " in the background is Neil.

Here are also a couple of photos from just after midnight, I love the policemen's faces!

Everybody dispersed quite quickly after midnight, so we managed to find a taxi and headed over to Itaweon to finish the night off. I managed to find a girl who wasn't scared of my kilt for a New Year's kiss, so that was nice. And during the course of the night myself, Colin and Neil all became seperated so that by the time the subway opened I was all alone :( ...... but I wasn't bothered I'd had a great night. Then began what is becoming a ritual if ever a night out in Seoul occurs......the subway journey home. Only this time it was being done still half-cut, and with me wearing a kilt. What a sight.

Here are three videos documenting my journey home.

After a day recovering (much aided by a bottle of Irn-Bru- cheers Stewartie!) it was back to work on the 2nd.
I have moved onto a different timetable at In-Dong for January which means I now work 10-6 Mon/Wed/Fri, which I quite enjoy, it means I finish earlier so have more time for the gym and I can eat at a reasonable time. It looks like I will be going to my directors new school one day a week starting a week on Friday. I have mixed feelings, but the school itself is really nice so it should be good I think.
Finally, it was Scott's birthday on Saturday so we had another wee night out in Seoul. Scott is not actually an English teacher as most of us are, instead he makes his Won by selling socks and fake sunglasses in Itaweon. Here he was wheeling his mobile stall down the pavement......it's a hard life!

And so ends the first blog of 2008 (according to Blogspot, who operate on Pacific time). I hope you are enjoying them, I am certainly enjoying finding things to write about..........

Love to all, Neil