We had Korean street food last night, it was been a long time since we had them, way back in downtown we have street food every week but since we moved here we always have BHC chicken.  Anyway I went to the nearby canteen where street foods are sold, there are already plenty of customers most of them are students buying their snacks before heading home.  I waited for my turn to give my order, with the help of a tong I am able to add the food I like when the owner can’t figure out how many I wanted.

Cheese sticks are my husband’s favorite, we usually buy bags of cheese sticks in supermarket and we cooked it ourselves but when I discover that cheese sticks were also sold in the street and they taste better than the cheese sticks in the supermarket we stopped buying bags of cheese sticks and if we are craving for it we just head to the nearby canteen. I also bought 2 sticks of fried tteokboki.

Aside from cheese sticks I also bought fried sweet potato, stuffed peppers and dumplings (mandu) as it was already getting late only few are left in the tray so I took them all, my husband told me not to get over board but dunno if I did.

It is holiday in Korea since yesterday because of the celebration of Seollal or Lunar New Year, my husband and I shopped for marinated pork meat to grill at Nonghyup supermarket like what expected the supermarket is giving food trays to every shoppers. We are asked to get one but we declined because we are moving soon and we can’t use it.

[Image from Google Search]

Korean New Year is the first day of the Korean lunar calendar. It is one of the most significant traditional Korean holidays. It consists of a period of celebrations, starting on New Year’s Day. The Lunar New Year celebration lasts three days.

The three day holiday is used by many to return to their hometowns to visit their parents and other relatives, where they perform an ancestral ritual called charye. It seems most of the occupants in our apartment building went home to their respective ancestral homes because it is quite empty unlike the normal days, most shopped are closed as well.

When we we out for the gym tonight I was surprised to see Christmas decorations adorned in  trees in our neighborhood.  In our old neighborhood we can’t really feel it is Christmas because there’s no decorations like this, we will just be reminded that Christmas is coming when we happened to walk in the shopping street where few stores has Christmas ornaments other than that, it was just  a normal day or celebration.

Well, we can’t really feel Christmas in Korea because every Christmas we are out of the country but not this year I guess. This year was our last Christmas in Korea as we are leaving in a few months time. 🙁