Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

New Year’s here was fun. On New Year’s Eve Mo and I went and had drinks with Uncle Francis (who owns one of our favorite bars in Bongo). The bars (and the town too) was pretty quiet for what is a typically a huge party night. Planning to only split a beer, we ended up having 2 each with Uncle Francis...in one hour to top it off. Then, we rode home and met Ai (our roommate) and she cooked us New Year’s dinner (I helped a little): Korean pancakes and Chinese noodles. Our special New Year’s Eve plan was to try to soak Vodka into a watermelon, but we failed: the melon was bad...and the vodka did not want to soak too much! Apparently (according to the internet) you are supposed to start a week in advance. I don’t know though...I have had vodka watermelon at some of my friend’s parties....and they are not the type to plan these things 1 week in advance!!! But, who knows. Instead, we drank some box sangria (which is available in Bongo no less)! None of us stayed awake until midnight (too drunk to stay awake) plus Ai and I made plans to partake in Japanese New Year tradition. We woke at 5am to walk 3km to the Bongo hills and climb them before sunrise. It is Japanese tradition to greet the first sunrise of the new year. We actually made it to the hills and to the top of one before the sun rose...I was very surprised. It was very nice and peaceful. We shared some oranges up there...it was nice. 

Then, New Year’s day we wished everyone “Yahm Parlay” (Happy New Year) and made the rounds to say hello. Mo and I went to have drinks with a co-worker at the District Assembly (which turned into two cokes for me, but two beers for Mo). After that we had to go say hello to Uncle Francis and some other relatives that we really like and discovered that New Year’s Day is the real party night (oops)...and so we had more beers bought for us, and we bought a round for everyone...it was a lot of fun. BUT...by then the sun had set and we had to ride our bikes back without lights, and slightly intoxicated. Then, like typical college drunks, we made some Ramen noodles (here they are “Indomene” brand) and went to bed.  There is a bar really close to our house, and we could hear sooooo many people at the bar last night. I was wondering why no one partied on New Year’s Eve...now I know...it is really the first night of the New Year that is the party day here!!!

We have been missing everyone a lot lately. BUT, some good news is that we start sampling next week. Hopefully we will be too busy to think about how much we miss our friends and family!!!