Happy New Year

The Year of the Pig is upon us. Not just any Year of the Pig, but the Year of the Red Pig. And not just any Year of the Red Pig, but the Year of the Golden Pig. Possibly. It seems the Year of the Golden Pig rolls around every 600 years. It's an especially auspicious year to be born in. Trouble is, people can't quite remember when the last Year of the Golden Pig was. So some people have decided that this is the Year of the Golden Pig. Which basically means golden piggy banks are the in thing. Here's the one I got with my last box of cereal.

The New Year's festivities in Korea are rather dull. Everyone goes off to visit their families. There are no big parades or fireworks displays. The only good thing about it is that it's three days long. But this year, two of those days are on the weekend.

One Korean tradition is to eat Teok-guk, which is rice stick soup. The rice sticks are just concentrated rice, formed into little sticks. Once you eat the rice stick soup, you get a year older.