2008 New Years Celebration in Korea

Only one word comes to mind when I think of this recently past New Years Celebration and that is nothing shy of AMAZING!!! I was blessed to spend my Christmas (I will expound on my Christmas experience in the very near future.) and New Year here in Seoul, South Korea. As you will see in this video and others to come, I spent the new years with two of my friends from New Samaritan Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., USA. I feel elated to have had a part in encouraging them to venture out and come teach here in Korea. They couldn't have come at a better time. Natarsha and Neesa arrived here in Korea two days after Christmas. Natarsha lives about 30 minutes from me and Neesa lives nearly an hour away from by way of subway. I made sure I stayed in town for the holidays so I could give them a proper welcome ... aaaaaaaand because I wasn't trying to spend my whole paycheck trying to spend the holidays in Thailand with my co-teachers. But thats neither here or there. WE HAD A BALL!

I must say that it was as cold as cold could ever be it seemed like. My feet felt like I had gone ice skating with no ice skates; just slidin' around on ice all night. Thank God for Starbucks making there way to Korea. When we got so cold that we couldn't stand it anymore, we slid right on into Starbucks and got us some Mocha "Somethin' Somethin's." I can't keep up with the names of those beverages.

When we finally got warm enough, we went back outside to take more pictures and enjoy the festivities. We were walking and we saw this huge tent. And there were Koreans and foreigners running to and from this tent so naturally we were curious about was going on. So when we neared the tent we saw that they were giving them away. It was so cold out there that I took two. The hood had ears on it. We all looked like a pack of "Shreks" walking around outside in the cold.

Neesa, Natarsha, and I were not alone for the new years. Natarsha made friends with the American teachers at her school quite swiftly. They invited us to share in this great celebration with them. If not for them, I don't know what we'd been doing for new years.

Prior to us adorning the celebration with our presence, we enjoyed a splendid New Year's dinner at a great Thai restaurant. The food was tremendous.



After the celebration, we road the subway home and met some funny Korean high school kids. They were into Hip Hop so strong! One of the guys had a huge fake gold rope chain. He thought he was so cool. It was so funny. Watch the video.