Saturday, January 8, 2011

Resolutions for 2011

Just over a week into the new year--how is yours going so far?  Did you make resolutions for the Year of the Rabbit, or did you head into the year with the idea of letting the chips fall where they may?  Whatever your tradition for starting the year, I hope that this year will be a happy and healthy one for all of you.

Over the last year I was happy to keep to some of my resolutions.  Accomplishing some of my goals has given me great motivation and expectation for the new year in accomplishing more.

Resolutions for 2011:

1)  Stay in shape and continue to eat healthier.
2)  Continue to work out and go to the gym.
3)  Travel.  (Getting some of this done very soon!)
4)  Continue blogging about Korea and life here.  (Doing pretty well on keeping things recent.)
5)  Spend more time reading.  (I want to read a book a month if possible.)
6)  Spend more time on my hobbies.
7)  Challenge myself in a new way.  (Starting a new job next month that should be a different challenge for me!)
8)  Take more pictures; do more photo editing and uploading.
9)  Learn more Korean.
10) Learn to cook new foods.
11) Play guitar more.

This is just a rough list for now.  If I think of more goals I'd like to accomplish, I'll add them later.

For this New Year's celebration, we headed up to Seoul for a nice, relaxing weekend enjoying the city.  Friday evening found us enjoying delicious Greek food in Itaewon (where I devoured 14 mussels--more than I have ever eaten in my life).  Afterwards, we headed over to Bosingak, where the main celebration was being held.  Thousands of foreigners and Koreans alike were jam-packed into the belfry square, watching the performances on-stage while trying to conserve body heat.  The atmosphere was happy and hopeful as we awaited the countdown to 2011.

Performers from the Korean versions of "Rent" entertained the crowd with a rousing rendition of "Seasons of Love;" very appropriate for the occasion.  They then segued into some 50's rock complete with sock-hop style dancing.  After a little bit of conversation between the event hosts (in Korean), we arrived at the last 10 seconds of 2010.

"Ship, gu, pal, chil, yuk, oh, sa, sam, i, il..."
"Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one..."
"Happy New Year!!"  The chorus of well-wishes rang loud and clear.  Foreigners wished us and others a happy new year, and Koreans who spoke English did as well.

The next challenge was getting back to our hotel.  Thousands of people moving en masse equals a very overloaded subway system, and having to wait longer than normal to get on the train.  We passed the time talking to some new acquaintances from Thailand, and soon found ourselves in Hongdae.  However, the hour became late and with plans the next morning, we had to take our leave earlier than the rest of the group.  But all in all, it was a fun time!

5 comments:

  1. Good Luck with your resolutions :) Happy New Year!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! Happy New Year to you as well! :)

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  3. Hi, I just found your blog. I hope you have a good new year. ^^

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi John, thanks for reading! And I hope you have a good new year as well. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. All good goals. I've got similar resolutions for 2011 that I'll be blogging about too.

    I might just add 'learn guitar' to mine. So much easier to be dreamy with a guitar than a piano :-p

    Your New Year's sounds really nice.

    ReplyDelete

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