Goodnight, 2007.

New Years Eve 2007--what an adventure!

Courtney and I decided to join our friend Jill and her boyfriend Carlson for a one night excursion to the East coast of Korea. Destination: Yeongdeok (pronounced "young duck"). It is Korean tradition to watch the sunrise on New Year's Day and Yeongdeok has the oldest sunrise festival on the peninsula.

With nothing to do on New Year's Eve, traveling across the country seemed like the best option.

We didn't decide to leave until around noon (our mistake). It took us about 5 hours to reach the coast. Once we got there, it was a little confusing finding our way to the sunrise festival. We had to take a $10 taxi and then find a hotel while waiting for Jill and Carl to show up. Unfortunately, the hotels that usually cost $29 were jacked up to $200 a night! WOW! That set us back a little... Once Jill and Carl showed up we all went out to dinner together and ate some fresh caught crab--by far the most delicious crab I've ever had.

Afterwards we walked around the festival and perused the activities. There was a heavy metal concert (which seems to be the norm at festivals though nobody dances or even bobs their head!), a tree were you were supposed to stick a paper to that had your 2008 wish on it (later that night they poured gasoline on the tree and lit it on fire), a huge pagoda with a big bell lit up with florescent lights, and fireworks (which was kinda scary since everyone was walking around shooting off roman candles and flinging sparklers without any sense of caution). After walking around the festival for a bit, we decided to walk down to the water but gave up because it was a long walk.

Instead, we found an SUV with some drunk Koreans inside--much more interesting. Courtney started the fun by walking up to the car and saying, "Happy New Year!" and asking for a kiss (she didn't get one). However, her erratic behavior didn't scare them off! We had such a blast just hanging out with them on the side of the street and talking in our broken Korean and their... well... less than broken English. It was funny though. They had the music cranked up, were dancing, drinking Soju like water, passing around hard boiled eggs which we accepted joyously, and in turn, we shared our bottle of wine with them.

After our little roadside party, we headed back to the festival for the countdown. One of the Koreans selling sparklers gave us about 20 for free so we had some fun taking pictures with those.

Next was the countdown: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... DONG!!! There goes the bell! I joked that they would probably ring it 2008 times but no, they only rang it 33 times--a symbolic number in Buddhism which signifies the 33 steps to enlightenment. Will we be enlightened in 2008? Probably not.

Following the bell was a long slew of speeches and standing around for so long froze the marrow in my bones. But I was going to warm up soon! Next was the tree lighting and fireworks ceremony. I was lucky to get a front row spot right behind the police brocade for the tree lighting where they burned our 2008 wishes, and PTL! I was on the right side of the three! The wind picked up in the middle of the fire and sent tons of embers flying into the crowd directly across from me! Then, just on the right of the circle from me, the timbers inside the tree pyramid started exploding and sending more embers into the crowd! It was a little scary but luckily I was safe and so was the rest of the crowd. To finish off the ceremony, a group of traditional Korean dancers and percussionists ran around the circle in a ritual of sound and light. You can see them in the last two pictures below.

After the ceremony, we all headed back to the hotel and tried to get warm before going to bed. It was going to be an early morning.