Lunar new year, Seolnal, is the biggest holiday in Korea. This year falling on February 3rd-5th the actual holiday is on the day of the second new moon after winter solstice. Three days are taken so people can travel to their hometowns and to visit parents and grandparents. Kids dress up in colorful hanbok costumes, play traditional games, fly kites, and the special food to eat is Tteokguk (soup with rice cakes). The streets of Gwangju have been uncharacteristically calm because so many people are out of town.
To celebrate I joined some friends for dinner and drinks. In the festive food spirit my friends chose to eat at a Korean bbq restaurant. I don’t take part in this often because the meal is centered around meat. You sit at a table, there’s a burner in the center with a griddle and above this is a smoke vent. The griddle is slanted and has a pour spout so that the fat cooking off the meat can run down into a drip catch under the table. I love that it’s common to go to a restaurant and cook your own food. What a great idea. It’s better than a build your own sundae bar at the buffet, you actually get to make hot food. My dream would be a pressed sandwich place, where everyone sits around making perfect grilled cheese sandwiches. For the bbq you place thin slices of raw meat on the grill, cook to your liking, place on a lettuce leaf, apply condiments, and eat. My problem here is obviously in sitting at a table piling on meat. The smell is intense and it gets very smoky so much so that your clothes smell like a busy restaurant when you leave the meal. But for the sake of my meat eating friends I occasionally go to these restaurants. I end up with a questionably vegetarian meal, usually eating lots of rice and some kimchi and drinking watery beer. I am always amazed at the amount of meat that is brought out and somehow they are able to eat every last bit. The table is covered almost like a mosaic by little plates filled with sides, soup bowls, soup pots, baskets of lettuce, cups for water, glasses for beer, and of course chopsticks and a spoons. As a waitress I’m amazed at the amount of work that goes into that presentation.
To continue on our new year’s celebration we headed to an arcade goofed around, played whack a mole, and explored the “norae-bang lockers” which are similar to a karaoke room, but these are small closets for one person -or two squooshed. The lockers line the room and if you stand in the middle you hear an eerie off key ambient howling of all the combined singing.
