Lunar New Year, that is. In many parts of the western world, it’s known as “Chinese New Year” but that doesn’t sit well with all the other Asia culture who also celebrate the event. The official new year day is next Tuesday, January 27th. But since it’s normally a 3-day holiday we’ll start on Monday and have through Wednesday. So, I now have a 5-day weekend. This is a much bigger holiday in Asia than January 1st (or December 31st) and is a time of family gatherings.

This year, I’ll be going to MyeongHee’s mother’s house on Pohang. Although I’ve been in Korea for 3 years, I’ve missed all the official New Years rituals. In 2005, MH and I weren’t dating long enough for her to take me home to her family. My friend Kim Wheels had come then and we spent the holiday wandering around Seoul trying to find restaurants that were still open. In 2006 I was living back in Texas. In 2007 I had just barely returned to Korea and went skiing with friends. In 2008, I took two weeks vacation during LNY to come back to Texas and see my family and friends. This will be the first LNY, or  “Sol Nal” as they call it, in which I’ll get a chance to see how the Koreans do it.

We’ll leave from Ulsan on Sunday, so when I come back I hope to be able to type a few paragraphs on what LNY means for the Koreans.

I’ll be sitting on my ass on a comfy sofa until we go to Pohang. Once we get there, its three days of sitting and sleeping on hard-ass floors.

Have you been to Ulsan online yet? I’ve been speding lots of time lately on the site writing code, formatting, editing and even writing articles. I hope to write more articles, but lately its been down-and-dirty geek stuff. I’m not complaining, because as a geek, that’s fine for me.

The work I did for the Ulsan Pear and, briefly, for the Korea Sun, were all volunteer. This one has been, too, so far, but that may be about to change. We’ve reached the point where we have enough content to get some of the local businesses to pay for banner ads and other forms of advertising. I might actually make some coin in this venture. Not enough to get rich, but it might be enough to buy me a beer or two.

One perk I get so far is a discount on the bar at Benchwarmers, a local sports bar and one of our partners. I also get to advertise for MyeongHee’s hair shop, listed on the same page.

Check out the site and tell me what you think.  Should any of you actually want to visit me here, it might give you a decent idea of what living here is like. This blog has only my experiences, not the breadth of experiences of dozens of expats like me.