Happy new near everyone. This submission is a bit belated, but such is the story of life. This year was probably one of the most amazing new year celebrations I have had in my life (maybe). Since I had most of the week off I decided that the best thing to do was to go into Seoul and find a party. In all honesty, I decided that I'd be in Seoul for New Years back in September.
With the plan set in motion, I met up with a friend of mine that is teaching south of me and checked into a hotel on Friday night. We spent the weekend shopping at the Yongsan Electronics Mart and Dongdeamun Market. Then on
Monday we started searching for a party. We found one at the Bosin-Gak. It's the name of a pavilion that houses a bell that was forged in 1468. During the Joseon dynasty this gigantic bell was rung 33 times at dawn, representing the 33 heavens in Buddhism and 28 times at dusk, representing the 28 stars that determine human destiny. These two separate ringing times signaled the opening and closing of the city gates. Now it is only struck 12 times at midnight on new years day where every year crowds gather to watch a spectacle similar to Time Square in New York.
The pavilion is located on the corner of an intersection across the street from Jongo Tower near Insadong in Seoul. We made our way out of the subway on the Jongo Tower side of the road and were greeted by four rows of police officers lining the street to keep people from stepping off the curb until they closed the streets. On arrival we worked our way through the throng and found a piece of real estate the size of a manhole cover in an elevated planter.
Once we settled in I started snapping pictures and videos of the surroundings. At around 11:30PM the streets opened up to pedestrians and there was a mad rush of pushing to the street. In the excitement I moved with the crowd towards the street, but soon realized my other spot was better and headed back to my original spot. After resettling I started to make phone calls to family and friends around the world and ended up on the Television NY's special, and most of the students at my school saw and mocked me the next day; that was funny.
The video below is of my last 30 seconds of 2007 spent with several millions of people on the streets of Seoul, Korea. It was Awesome!
The funny part was with in seconds of the bell ringing you could see a wave of people making a move to be the first on the subway back home. My friend and I looked at each other and decided that we'd take a ride on that wave and head back to the hotel. The key to maneuvering through crowds of this magnitude is to not panic, and go with the flow. My experience at the International Fireworks Festival a couple months ago helped and we pushed our way through to the underground shopping mall and over to the subway station, which was closed. No problem, the crowd just shoved us out the other side of the tunnel to the street and two blocks up to another station.
Well, that pretty much sums up my crazy New Year Celebration. Happy New Year to all!
