De Hanmer À Busan: 새해 복 많이 받으세요!

Last week, Koreans celebrated Seolnal (설날), the Korean New Year holiday!

Yup, like the people of China and other countries, Koreans celebrate the lunar new year. And 설날 is a very important holiday in Korea. Only Chuseok (추석), Korean Thanksgiving, is as important a holiday.

As I had done last October, during the 추석 holiday, I took advantage of the 설날 holiday to travel to Seoul. In doing so, I had a specific motive. I wanted to see Seoul covered in snow! And so, I joined the 31 million other Koreans who were travelling during 설날. That's right, almost as many Koreans as there are Canadians travel somewhere for 설날.

I thought there would be snow in Seoul because this year was one of the coldest years on record in Korea. Record cold temperatures were seen throughout the country in January, colder than had been seen since 1973. In Busan, on one January morning, a temperature lower than -14 degrees Celcius was measured. Such cold temperatures had not been seen in Busan since 1915! The Korea Meteorological Administration attributed the country-wide cold snap to unusual air movements in the Arctic, resulting from warmer than usual air temperatures up there.

This January's unusual cold was also accompanied by large quantities of snow. So, I headed to Seoul thinking that it should still look a little bit like this given that it had been hit by a major snowfall only a week and a half earlier. (Eille petite soeur… Tu peux voir ici un petit chien coréen qui s'appelle "Spudgy" jouer dans la neige pour la première fois.) I also hoped to see scenery like this along the way.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much snow left in Seoul. I only found some in a few parks, or hidden on the shady side of mountains, buildings and structures. There was, however, an impressive sheet of ice on the Han-gang (한강).

Snow in downtown Seoul. Not pretty.

Snow by Seoul's ancient city wall, on Inwang san.

Snow in a park, in Seoul.

Flowers in the snow, by the Han gang.

Ice on the Han gang.

On the way to Seoul, most of the snow had also already melted. There was only a little left in some fields, especially in the northernmost part of the country, near Seoul. But once in a while, I could spot a few frozen ponds or lakes near the train tracks. And shortly after my train pulled out of Busan, a few people were ice skating on one of these frozen ponds.

A snow-free landscape, in southern South Korea.

Huts on a frozen lake, in central South Korea.

Snow in a field, near a frozen pond.

Snowy fields.

More snowy fields.

In light of the realization that there was not much snow in Seoul, I decided instead to take in Seoul's night lights, as darkness falls fairly early in Seoul this time of year. Seoul's night lights are beautiful!