Seollal

Today starts Seollal - AKA Lunar New Year, AKA Chinese New Year. The fact that it sounds so much like "solar" was confusing, but then sometimes I'm simple like that.

Anyway, Sollar is a BIG BIG deal. The day before and after are also holidays, and I guess the buses and trains were and will be a mess, especially as this year it attaches to a weekend, giving people five days off - almost unheard of.

Koreans refer to this as the year of the mouse, which sounds a bit nicer than year of the rat. Mouse, rat, either way, if you are a rodent (like my baby brother - no, really, this really is his sign!), this is your year. If you want to find out your Chinese zodiac sign, here you go.

This means that I have five days to study and roam around the city, but there aren't a lot of places to roam TO - today so many places are closed and this was the day there was a better chance of finding things open.

Which is good on the study front - I feel like the course is a good level for me to be in, but it is challenging and I'm not at the top of the class, which is hard for me. I feel strong in the first session of the morning, but by the last session, my brain has ceased processing information.

Also, most folks know that I'm not a world-champion speller in English, and it seems that this is also an issue in Korean. Yay.