Lunar New Years

Last weekend was the first time I ever celebrated this Holiday.

I went with my homestay family to visit their hometown in the countryside. We stayed there for three days. It was interesting how peaceful and quiet it was. I was hoping to be able to at least see the stars at night, but the light pollution was still quite strong. :(

We ate the Korean traditional New Year's food all days I was there. No offense to Korean cuisine, but I did not like the food. Like most Korean food, they were too plain. I still ate it, though. I am one of those people who can eat anything. Just force it in.

During the morning of the New Year day, us young people formally greeted out elders by doing this kneeling bow, standing up to do a 90 degree bow, then get back on the floor sitting on our knees again. And then the elders whom we bowed to will give us our New Year's money.
To the minors, they like this time of the year because they receive a lot of money. I mean a LOT. They receive about 100$-200$ worth of money, and some people even get up to 250$ total. I got about 100$ worth. I did not really want to accept the money since I feel like it is too much, but they really insisted that I accept it, and so I did.

My Winter Vacation

So far, my vacation had been boring. It really is boring.
All of my friends I have made will now be high school seniors, and they are too busy competing with each other for the kSAT. =/
But it is not just them. Everyone is busy with their school stuff anyways. It's just the high school seniors that are special. They get to be even more busy than everyone else. The elementary schoolers have it easy though, until they move up to middle school.

Once in a while I bug my friends to try to get them to hang out with me, but I always fail. It's fun to bug them anyway.

Because everyone is so busy, I have to find ways to keep myself busy. What other easy option is there besides video games? Well, that was, and is, my solution to being by myself. At home, I could either watch television, study, read, walk around outside, or play video games. There is not much of a choice to choose something I would enjoy.