We went to a folk village and saw an amazing shamanic ritual that is performed for the new year. This lovely old woman played the drum for the ritual.
This is the main shaman from the ritual. It was cool a lot of dancing and chanting with music. She did some amazing things with long ribbons and twisting while she was dancing. She also did a thing where she held out flags to audience members and the person would pick one and the color would tell her something about good or bad luck for the year ( or at least that is what it seemed like to us). 
They also threw food out into the audience. It was really crazy - people went mad - it was like they were starving or something. Olive was in the stroller close to the stage but during the frenzy we had to get her out or she would have been crushed. It was madness !
Netta made this kite. She flew it quite a bit. It worked pretty well but has since sort of disintegrated because it is made of paper. She did get some good runs on our hill outside the house and at Nakseongdae Park.
This is the pond at the village. It was frozen over and everybody was walking on it. Very cool - except in the places you could see bubbles from the water below - kind of nerve wracking.So that was our lunar new year - on to the year of the rabbit!
I have some other posts about Netta's art and some trips we made with her friends but I will let them wait until next time.
Hope everyone is well - we are thinking about coming home. We are over halfway through our year here and have set a date to return home June 28 although we have not bought our tickets yet. We are all looking forward to home.
Hello Elana! I just found out about your blog, and am now looking forward to going back and seeing how your year has been so far.
ReplyDeleteIn case it makes you feel better, the crud has been going around CA too (and other parts of the US as well) and I have been sick with it for almost 2 months off and on. So, that's one thing that probably would not have been any different if you were still back here. ; ) I hope you are all well now!
And please tell Netta her artwork is beautiful--that nest on the tree was my favorite. And the Pooh and Piglet she made for Olive--a very sweet big sister thing to do.
I am hosting a homeschool camp on China this week in my tiny house (luckily the three girls joining us are good friends--and Tegan James got to join us one day too). So we were learning all about the Chinese New Year on Tues--I will show Gwynneth these pics from your Korean New Year, and I'm sure she will enjoy the thought of someone she knows getting to experience a lunar new year in person.
I don't know what they say in Korean, but in Chinese it's "Gung-Hey-Fat-Choy!" : )
Lisa Craddock
Molly was just asking today when you would be coming home. She will be so happy to hear your return date. Molly has stayed very interested in your blog and she asks every week to see if you've posted anything new!
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