Our Seoul and Tokyo Adventure: Day Twelve

The last day of 2007? Already? Well, around my parents' house, the last day of the year is a busy day, but we started out like any other day, with a breakfast of toast, cereal, and a plate of fresh fruit (apples, mandarin oranges, and persimmons). Ever since I can remember, my dad's liked to put two different toppings on his toast, side-by-side, and today he graced his slice with blueberry jam on one half and pineapple cream cheese on the other:

Although my parents aren't Buddhist, my father's parents and all of his sisters were/are Buddhists, and as the eldest (and only) son, it's my father's responsibility to uphold the Buddhist tradition of performing jaesa (Buddhist memorial rites) to honour the family ancestors. While he is technically supposed to observe these five times a year (once on new year's day for all ancestors, and then on each anniversary of his parents' and their parents' deaths), the amount of work involved means that my parents have condensed these observations to three times a year (new year's day for everyone, the date of my grandmother's death for both her and my grandfather, and the date of my great-grandfather's death for both him and my great-grandmother). For one of these jaesa (my grandparents'), the entire family comes to my parents' house to pay their respects, but on new year's day, it's usually just my parents. This year, the new year's jaesa would include me and Bob, and although we kept offering our help with the substantial food preparations, my parents seemed to have their own rhythm of tasks that didn't allow us much opportunity to contribute. To begin with, the house got a good cleaning. (As you can tell, my subjects have gotten used to me taking photos of most everything . . . .)

Since there was so much cooking to do, we got our lunch delivered--jajangmyeun (Chinese noodles in black bean sauce) is the most common food that Koreans get delivered, and as with all such deliveries, ours included plastic plates that we rinsed and left outside the front door to be picked up by the restaurant later that day. The plate of mandu (dumplings) was a freebie from the restaurant.

When my parents were in Vancouver last year, they wanted to have jajangmyeun one day, and since Bob and I lived close to several Korean restaurants, my dad insisted on calling to see if they delivered, even though I said that I didn't think Vancouver Korean restaurants did that. Sure enough, I was right, and my parents were thoroughly perplexed--a restaurant that serves jajangmyeun but doesn't deliver? For them, that was as bizarre as a pizza place that didn't deliver. On a sidenote, the black colour of jajangmyeun is even associated with a special day in Korea. Koreans celebrate Valentine's Day on February 14th, but only men receive chocolates on this day. Before all you female readers voice your concern about this state of affairs, Koreans also celebrate "White Day" on March 14th, when only women receive chocolates. Ah, but another month later, there's "Black Day" when all the single people who didn't get chocolates on Valentine's Day or White Day meet up in jajangmyeun restaurants to drown their chocolate sorrows in giant bowls of the black noodle dish.

After lunch, I decided to see if my dad had played a turn in our email scrabble game, and since he had, I looked at my tiles to take my turn. While I was thinking about what word to make, my dad wandered in to see if I was taking my turn. "Hey! No peeking at my letters!" I said, and my dad laughed at being caught, and left me to take my turn.

Bob, my dad, and I went to do some errands around town, picking up some last-minute jaesa necessities. It was another really cold day, and my dad was very happy to see this small stall set up near the centre of Suji:

Once we peered into the tent and saw what they were selling, I was very happy too! The steaming hot fish-shaped pastries with sweet red-bean filling

are delicious, especially on a cold day.

When we got home, the house was full of cooking smells, but not for tonight's dinner--everything was for the jaesa, and I told my dad that he should give the tired chef a massage!

We would eat a lot tomorrow, so tonight we just had a simple dinner of beef-based soup, rice, and ban chan.

Although he's definitely not the executive chef of the house, my dad had his assignments when it came to cooking for the jaesa, including making the batter

and frying the zucchini slices.

While my parents were cooking and I was keeping them company in the kitchen, I realised that I hadn't yet taken a photo of my favourite new addition to their house:

Bob and I quickly got used to their filtered water dispenser, which has buttons for cold water, room-temperature water, hot water, and extra-hot water for tea. It was going to be hard to leave such convenience for our simple Brita back in London! Anyway, the cooking was finally done for the night, and since it was new year's eve, the bartender got down to work.

The three drinkers had black Russians and I had a lychee and apple juice

at the ready for a midnight toast. We watched the ceremonial ringing of the Bosingak bell

and thought it was funny that all the new year's celebrations were taking place at the base of the giant skyscraper Christmas tree that we had passed many times during this trip.

Actually, our Suji bus usually stops right in this camera shot, but I guess there weren't any buses running there tonight!