Archive for January, 2010

Even though it was as cold as strawberry ice cream cake, we actually made it to the 2010 New Year’s Eve celebration in downtown Seoul, South Korea. Here’s what we experienced.

The directions we found on the internet for what to do for New Year’s Eve in Seoul were accurate for the most part. We read on another blog that you can’t get off the subway at the Jonggak station and were told to get off at the Jongno-3 station. But when the train stopped at Jonggak, almost everyone on the train got off. We decided to follow them and see where we’d end up.

We went out exit 1 and saw the Bosingak bell across the street. We went back into the subway and tried to come out right near the bell. We failed somehow but hung around the crowd there. (picture)

We saw the walls of policemen who were there to keep the crowds where they wanted us to be. I saw that the policemen had tiny fire extinguishers strapped to their shoulders. I figured those were in case someone got themselves set on fire during the fireworks and roman candles portion of the night after the New Year officially starts.

At some point, we saw the crowd running in a certain direction. We didn’t know where they were going or why they were running but I figured we should get running too!

We ended up by some stage where the New Year’s Eve show was taking place. They had 2 hosts who explained everything that was going on (all in Korean). The show consisted of Korean drumming, rapping, and a lot of singing.

They also had the countdown to the new year. I guess they warned us that it was coming (in Korean) but we didn’t catch it at first. They started counting from 10 and by the time we figured out what it was, it was almost over.

Roman candles were set off starting from just before the new year until a while after. But I didn’t see anyone shoot any near me. I expected everyone to be shooting roman candles recklessly. But it was way safer than the normal roman candle shootings that you see at night by every beach in South Korea.

The subways kept running for a while after midnight. We caught a train at 1am. I believe the subways in Seoul kept running until 2am on New Year’s Eve.

Overall, it was a really good New Year’s Eve event. Even though it was FREEZING COLD out there, while we were in the big mass of people, it wasn’t bad at all. See more pictures below!

If you attended the New Year’s Eve celebration in Seoul this year, let us know what you thought of it!

If you attended the New Year’s Eve celebration in Seoul this year, let us know what you thought of it!