The lunar new year started well. By not drinking on the eve, I was up bright and early and hangover free. After drinking a couple cups of coffee, I went out to see if I could get some food. In Korea, it is traditional to start the New Year with a bowl of “sliced rice cake soup” (떡국, “tteokguk”) because it represents long life or something like that. It’s interesting that the rice cakes are also (sometimes) a part of the new year celebration in China, where they are called nian2gao1 (年糕, literally “Year Cake”). The place I had had lunch the day before had it on their menu, so I thought I’d try my luck if they were trying to capitalize on tradition in the morning. Luckily for me, the convenient store had a pack I could cook on my own.
I puttered about the hostel until the mid-afternoon when I went on a long-ish (long for someone out of shape) jog of 7 km. There are running tracks along all the waterways in Seoul and often with clusters of exercise equipment. By passing through a small park on the way to the nearest tributary, I only have to go through two stop lights, so I’m going to do as much running as I can.
I showered, dressed, and chilled until the evening when I had made plans with two Norwegian guests to go for the bbq pork buffet. They had spread the invitation around, so 7 of us left the hostel to get some food. I had no problem getting a table this time, and we were roasting up mountains of pork belly in no time. We were all down to drink some soju and beer, but the waiter carded us and since a few of us were not carrying ID, we weren’t able to drink at the meal. The irony is that it probably saved us a fair amount of money not paying the restaurant prices and it left more room in the belly for bacon.
After dinner, we found a karaoke room and sang for about two hours. Though there was a decent selection of English language songs and even some songs in Chinese, I’m going to need to learn a Korean song. We did have some drinks at the karaoke, and picked up some more on the way back to the hostel where we decided to play Monopoly for some reason when it was already close to midnight.
| Tteokbuk | 3500 W |
| BBQ Buffet | 11900 W |
| KTV | 3600 W |
| Beer | 4000 W |
| Soju & chocolate bars | 3550 W |
| Total: | 26550 W 160 RMB USD 23.8 |
Running Total: 2880 RMB (USD 427)
Daily Average: 320 RMB (USD 47.4)