New Year's Eve

modestly, this festive occasion began with a visit to view the new Narnia movie, complete with Korean subtitles which help the Korean audience to laugh at the exact opposite time as someone who speaks English might.....then Japanese food ensued and the street party began.....

young Koreans approach and offer you fiery sticks of gunpowder in exchange for chan won (or approximately 1 dollar).....these entrepreneurs are successful in their street hassling, as i spent almost $20 on fireworks with about 30 minutes.....almost like a war, the air and sky was soon filled with smoke, falling ash and waves of bodies pulsing and pushing.....it was hectic yet purely unhostile fun.....about 2 hours into this melee, i realized that if you aim your fireworks not up but in fact horizontally, they produce a much more desirable and interesting effect.....i am convinced that we saved the entire populace from renegade cabs, buses, cars and police vehicles (not to mention the odd stray pedestrian) by blasting them to kingdom come with our mighty arsenal of children's explosives.....watching fiery sparks ricochet off windows and fenders served as endless fun.....then we went to a museum

the Seoul National Museum had an exhibition of Fauvism and Henri Matisse on display.....and it was open until 3am.....which struck me as highly unusual, given the possibility for unruly and inebriated street people wandering in.....we managed to coax the supervisor into letting us play the piano in the atrium, and ended up having pictures taken, subsequently appearing in the newspaper.....and the exhibit itself was decent, although i am not particularly engaged in Fauvist impressionism, save for Metis himself and several other singular works.....

back on the streets, almost everything was quiet and clean.....street workers hit the pavement at around 1am and have the entire place cleaned by about 2:00am.....efficiency here is unparalleled.....not having fallen over or asleep yet, we shuffled through several blocks and found a hof still open.....then we played darts until the subway opened, circa 5:30am and masterminded methods of sleeping on the subway but with somehow waking up at the correct stop.....a truly foolish plan