New Year's Eve Seoul Searching

Tommy and I

Our night started out at Katie's house, which was great. Us gals gabbing, doing our make-up, curling our hair...it was like Leanne and I in university getting ready to head to the Barking Frog ;) Anyhoo, then we jumped onto the subway, which wasn't quite as busy as we had thought it would be, and really, really did not impress our co-riders. Case and point: the drunken Katie and Matt alongside the probably undrunk Korean man who was also completely unimpressed.

Once we got to our destination, after a brief stop for a bathroom break, I understood all the warnings from my co-workers. I can't fully describe to you just how many people there were there. Several million, I'm sure, but you can't really conceptualize how many human bodies that is until you actually can't move because you are among a sea of people. Walking from where we exited the subway to the stage where the bell was rung at midnight was an exercise in a) patience and b) near futility. It was awesome. The number of police at nearly every alley, subway exit, and side street ensured that no one could make a detour from the main and intended walkways. It was amazing.

Despite the fact that it was so packed with people, it was still remarkably cold outside. Huddling together like male penguins holding eggs wasn't even working. Plus, the eye candy that the multitude of Koreans provided was far too rich to turn away from.

Still, spirits were high and cameras were flashing to really capture all that we could. Remarkably, we were right near the stage where all the action happened: the donging of the bell, the traditional Korean dancing, the horrific singing (all Korean pop [or K-Pop, as they call it] sounds exactly the same to me). We were probably televised along with three or four million other people.

Ryan and I

I'm not sure that you can get an appreciation for the sheer volume of people here, but this is a "stick your arm way up in the air and just keep snapping pictures of the crowds until one actually turns out" photograph:

Oh, and some traditional Korean drummers up on the stage performing at about 11:30.

This might be the creepiest picture of the night. I have no idea what it is or how it got on the screen. Or even if I'm the only person who can see it??? Maybe it's some yin-yang symbol. Being that this is the strangest place on earth, it's safe to say it could be anything.



Here's most of the group posing, freezing, not really as joyful anymore.

Here's yours truly...always watching :)

Moving onto the next destination, which in my case happened to be home ;) this was the scene in the subway terminal. Now you can start to appreciate what it really looked like that night. To give you a frame of reference, the subway stations CAN be this busy at times, but they move quicker than the 1-8 items checkout at Fortinos, so you never really feel too packed. Unfortunately on New Year's Eve, everyone was already IN the subway, so packing even more human bodies onto it was proving to be more and more difficult. So we stood here, on the stairs, waiting for the human traffic to abate a little bit. And when we couldn't stand it any longer, Katie started a congo line of sorts and we shoved our way through the mass of Koreans to the subway door and forced ourselves on. It wasn't a proud moment for any of us, but we were pretty desperate to get out of there :)

All in all, it was a pretty amazing experience. I was so cold and tired, I just had to go home, but it was something I'll never do again: place and time came together just at the right moment and the universe brought us there to drink it all in.

Happy New Year!