My Birthday in Seoul

Pictures
1. The riot police and their bus full of fun, on guard against any trouble in one of the nicer parts of town.
2. Just a monk walking down the street. A five thousand year old religion on a modern metropoli Edit Posts s.
3. All dressed up in neon in one of the many red light districts in Seoul
4. Three Seoul rookies with cameras ready to go.
5. The round bed of love that I got to sleep in for two nights, incredibly hard.

My Thirty Third

18 February 2007

Well finally it was here. After waiting thirty-three years I finally had my 33^rd birthday. Yippee.

I had been planning to meet my friend Greg, who is working my old job done in Pohang, up in Seoul for some well-deserved R.R. for a while now. In fact we had both been looking forward to getting together for quite awhile and finally the big day came when we thought we would be partying with around fifty million Koreans, all celebrating my birthday.

Well not really celebrating my birthday, they had another reason to celebrate, along with a fifth of the world’s population. You see, by a total quirk of fate, this year my birthday happened to fall on the biggest celebration that will hit Asia in 2007, the Lunar New Year.

This year is the Year of the Pig here in Asia and millions of Asians are looking forward to it.

The Year of the Pig, which comes around only once every twelve years, according to the Chinese zodiac, is the best year to be born. According to the tradition every animal in the zodiac has a purpose, a sign and the pig is the symbol for good fortune and prosperity. To have your birthday on the actual day of the lunar New Year, well that is probably the best luck you can have. Millions of people have been waiting for twelve years for this moment alone and birthrates here in Korea, and Asia, are sky rocketing as people are using every means available, including fertility treatments, to have children in this, the most prosperous of years.

Getting to Seoul was pretty easy as most people in Korea look at this holiday as a time to be home with their families. Much to my disappointment there would be no celebration in the streets, no fireworks or spitting dragons to delight the crowds. This holiday would in fact be pretty quiet, a time for reflection and family instead of a massive party. That is for everyone but us.

I met Greg in the train station, he had taken the KTX high-speed train up from Pohang, and we immediately started shopping and celebrating.

After checking into our hotel we hit the electronics mart and the foreigner district where we met some friends, had beer and some Indian food before heading out on the town.

And that, because my mom reads my blog, is where it all ends.