New Year's 2012

Just in case you were wondering, they don’t celebrate Lunar New Year here (anymore), but there’s much festivity around January 1st. It’s a great time for families to get together. Our regular Sunday School at 9am was cancelled and worship time was even pushed back from 10:30 to 11:00 so that people could enjoy the morning together with family (note: Christmas Day service was at 10:30, Christmas Party was straight after, lasted till 3pm!). Many people were traveling so were not there that Sunday but there were also some new faces of family members who live elsewhere.

How did we celebrate New Year's as a family?

Well, on New Year's Eve, before dinner, I actually started making Korean kimchi pancakes (김치전) and Korean seafood pancakes (해물파전) for us to eat on New Year's Day for lunch after church. But it all got devoured that evening... ^^;;;

Jess came over and we had a great time together eating Korean food (I think there was something really random on the table too but I can't remember what it was...) and watching Kungfu Panda 2. It was so funny!!! =D Apparently Jess had fun watching me watch the movie too. -__- I think I surprised Juhee at one point 'cause I got really excited, squealed and squeezed her a bit too hard (she was sitting next to me). =D

New Year's breakfast was a quick toast, sausages, and eggs and then we rushed to get ready for church. After service, those that could stay a bit longer enjoyed a bowl of red bean soup with mochi inside, a staple in the Japanese New Year's menu. It's kinda like Korean red bean soup (팥죽) but it's (really) sweet, more soup-y, and instead of small round pieces of rice cake, there's one big rectangular chunk of sweet rice cake (mochi). Koreans eat it with a spoon, Japanese people eat it with chopsticks. Koreans spoon it out of the bowl, Japanese eat the mochi with chopsticks and slurp/drink the red bean soup out of the bowl. It's really hard to feed kids without getting messy and sticky. Thankfully, they had a few spoons available for those with kids - phew!

We (Oh's + Jess) slurped it up and then all came back to our place for the most basic, the most staple of Korean New Year's food - rice cake & dumpling soup (떡만두국)! I'd only made it once before so it was slightly experimental but it turned out delicious (if I say so myself). :)

I had so much fun during those two days and was so busy relaxing, I forgot to take pictures of us. :( At least I got one of the soup... ^^;

It was really nice to have someone to celebrate New Year's Eve and Day with, especially while being able to enjoy delicious Korean food like 김치전, 해물파전, and 떡만두국 together. ^^