Happy New Year, Korea!

Going out and celebrating New Year’s Eve becomes harder and harder the older we get, especially when you have spent every day since Christmas dressed in some form of pj, stuffing yourself with food, and bingeing on Netflix shows.

The crazy thing was that up until the morning of New Year’s Eve we were still entertaining the idea of ringing in the new year in Seoul as a consolation prize for not getting our shit together early enough to celebrate it in Hong Kong with friends. Like most of our trips this year we let the idea hover around us for days, neither one of us committed enough to scrap together any sort of plan or even daring to bring it up with the other.

In the end we decided to celebrate new year’s eve at home in downtown Daegu.

goodbye, 2015

Around 10pm we reluctantly scraped ourselves off the couch and pulled on layer after layer of warm clothing. I was tempted to wear my snowboarding gear but didn’t feel like waddling around Michelin man style, listening to my snow pants swish every time I took a step. Sidenote: why don’t any of the fashion blogs/magazines ever have holiday outfit suggestions for people that stand out in the cold for hours? Surely there’s something more attractive than snowboarding gear or wearing pantyhose under leggings under jeans stuffed into thick boot socks, right?

We drove downtown and magically found parking in a lot not too far from the evening’s events at Gukchae-bosang Memorial Park. It was maybe only a five minute walk from our car to the other side of the park but already I was freezing cold. I wondered if I would be able to tolerate standing outside for an hour. “Keep walking,” I told myself, “that will keep you warm.”

Food vendors of all sorts surrounded the perimeter of the park. On the side closest to bell pavilion we found tents offering heaters and free hot drinks. There were other tents for writing down wishes to attach to helium-filled red balloons. We wrote down our wishes for 2016 but never found the tent with the balloons.

We shoved our way through densely packed crowds and staked out our spot to watch the countdown. After driving, parking, dealing with crowds, and general lack of desire to be doing anything at all, Sly was pretty grouchy,  which in turn made me grouchy.

Not a good way to ring in the new year.

On stage the group SG Wannabe (weirdly/awesomely enough the ‘SG’ stands for Simon and Garfunkel…they sounded nothing like Simon and Garfunkel) sang Korean ballads while the crowd sang along. We stood in stony silence as people pushed and shoved (and sang) around us.

I, of course, took photos.

A million speeches later and after introducing about 50 people, including a random and exceedingly joyful French dude and a very serious American General, on to the stage for the bell ringing ceremony, the countdown finally began.

10…9…8…7…6…5…4…3…2…1…

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Those that had been able to find and acquire the mysterious message balloons released them into the sky while the 50 or so people on stage grouped together to ring the Dalgubeol Grand Bell. I think I was expecting the bell to ring like a super loud super-sized gong but it was a very subtle ringing. Or maybe it was just too noisy.

Then came the fireworks…

…and soon everyone lost interest in the bell…

In my head I know that new year’s eve is no different than new year’s day or really any other day of the year. With or without the fanfare it’s just one day ending and another day beginning. Except that every new year’s eve, right before the countdown begins, a small lump of sentimentality lodges in my throat.

I hate goodbyes.

After the countdown and fireworks Sly turned to me and said, “2015 was a pretty good one, wasn’t it?” We smiled at each other and I nodded.

At times it had been a hard – very hard – year, but all in all 2015 had been overwhelmingly good.

We began our new year with an obligatory new year’s kiss, standing in a crowd of people while paper confetti fluttered all around us…

..and then we slipped through the crowds hand in hand back to our car and back home again where we quickly changed back into our pjs and toasted the new year with glasses of bourbon.

After a few chugs we scrounged around in our coat pockets and dug out our wishes that we wrote but never attached to balloons. We had the kitties kiss/”bless” our pieces of paper and then we burned our wishes over the sink. Fingers crossed.

I’ll let you know if they come true…

Happy new year!

A look back on previous New Year’s Eves:

2014 Part 1
2014 Part 2 (Part 2 is an Easter egg post — I posted it well after the fact and backdated it since holiday posts never quite seem to work months later)
2013
2012

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DETAILS

New Year’s Eve Celebration in Daegu | LOCATION: Gukchaebosang Memorial Park | COST: Free | DESCRIPTION:  New Year’s Eve isn’t a big deal to Koreans in terms of going to parties and getting wasted. It’s more about spending time with family and reflecting on the old/new year. Typically a bell ringing ceremony of some sort occurs along with musical entertainment, street food vendors, balloon releasing, and maybe fireworks. The vibe is like what you would expect at any Korean festival. To be sure if you want to go to a club and get wasted you can do that too, but outside of expat bars, at least in Daegu, there aren’t crazy new year’s eve parties with insane covers and inflated drink prices. | TIP: Get there early if you want to get a balloon to release.