Just when you thought there weren’t any more original songs out there… There’s a (perhaps myopic, certainly optimistic) group of people in Hawaii that are really eager for more Koreans to come. So what have they done to promote their cause? As is so often the case in Korea when people cheer for baseball games, gather for a protest, or go out for an evening in groups (noraebang, anyone?), there’s got to be singing. And there is. They’ve made up a song to express their dream of Koreans being able to go to Hawaii without visas. Check it out.

In the “you learn something new every day” category:  a news article from Yahoo highlighting the effects of rising food prices on some of the most vulnerable among us.  However discontented we may sometimes feel, I’m sure most of us don’t thank our lucky stars nearly often enough.

This weekend, I did something good for me.  I bought the ingredients to make one of my favorite meals: “Drunk Stew.”  It’s a relatively simple recipe, but like most good stews, it takes a chunk of time.  So I used our day off on Monday (thank you again, Doctor King) to cook something yummy and relatively healthy.

Why is it called “drunk” stew, you ask?  Allow me to show you (the amount of this ingredient in the recipe is, um, somewhat copious):

Serve it over mashed potatoes, and you’ve got a really, really yummy dinner.  And since it makes several servings, perhaps some really, really yummy dinners for the better part of a week.

And yes, for those who were wondering, “yumminess” is a word.  ‘Cause I said it, that’s why.  And once it’s said, it’s a word.  Might not mean anything to anyone else, but it’s a word.  So there.

We Americans tend to think of ice fishing as a pretty solitary venture, with people in places like Minnesota sitting out on a frozen-solid lake with a fishing pole, a bucket, and sometimes a teeny hut and a portable TV or radio.  Here in Korea, however, ice fishing appears to be anything but solitary.  Don’t believe me?  The BBC proves the point - they did an “In Pictures” feature on it.  Ice fishing, Korean style.

One of the Korean internet media outlets recently followed one of their employees as she applied for a visa at our embassy.  They posted the video on their website.  So, for those who are interested, you can find a little glimpse of the Seoul visa process here.  The video just barely scratches the surface of the work we do, but it’s a good, relatively realistic snapshot from an applicant’s point of view.

I went home for Christmas.  And it was great.  Fantastic, even.  I know it’s cliché, but there really, truly is something to be said for spending the holidays with people you love and who love you back.  I was able this year to do just that, spending a couple of weeks with my wonderful mother and my lovely husband (yes, it still feels strange to say that word).

Last year I spent Christmas and New Year’s here in Korea.  It was fine, I hung out with some friends and colleagues here, I opened presents that my friends and family had generously sent to me across oceans, and I spent a lot of time on the phone.  But this year, it was so much richer.  It was like a breath of fresh air - the kind you get when you don’t realize you’ve been breathing stagnant, polluted air for months until that breath, and it’s at once delightful and shocking and utterly delicious.   Talk about starting a new year off right.

So here’s to fresh air. And along with it, a brand new, fresh year, with all its attendant new hopes, new places, and new experiences. And here’s hoping more of us will be able to spend more time this year with those we love than without them.  What could be better than that?