NEW YEAR ARRIVING

December 31, 2014

Homigeot Beach, Pohang

I woke up at 4am in a motel near the bus terminal in Pohang, an industrial harbor city on Korea's eastern coast. I had arrived the night before after finishing my last day of work before the holidays. My friend who I was traveling with had come to Pohang a few days before to visit the school where she taught the year before.

Pohang's most famous feature is a statue of two hands, one on the land, one in the water, reaching out towards each other across space. Located at the easternmost jut of the eastern coast, every year hundreds of people swarm the area, even camping out, to see the first sunrise of the new year filtered through the statue's fingers.

That morning we hopped in a taxi, joining a long line of cars all heading to Homigeot, the little edge of land where the sunrise festival is held. We were both exhausted from our schedules and the taxi driver kept telling us how overcast it was, that we wouldn't be able to see anything anyways. Eventually the cars came to a halt and the driver dropped us off on the stand-still highway. All around us people wearing layers of hats, coats and blankets were streaming out of cars, walking in a long procession along the road to the shore.

It was still dark then, with only a hint of light filtering over the horizon, and bitterly cold. My friend and I had dressed in long underwear, wool socks, leggings, sweaters, coats, scarves, hats and gloves, but the sharp winds along the embankment ripped through everything. Impossibly, the winds came from every direction, threatening to tear off blankets, scarves and knock children over.

As we approached the main square where the statues were the space became ever more crowded. Here we saw families who had rigged their vans and cars as sleepers and spent the night there, waiting. There were even some tents, though I have no idea how they could have stayed warm enough through the night.

The main square was too crowded and instead we wandered down onto the embankment rocks where we could settle in and have a clear view of the lightening sky. Around us people were singing, talking, yelling. Ours toes went numb and our eyes kept watering in the wind. Suddenly, the sky became blindingly bright as the sun split off from the sea. The clouds our taxi driver had chided us about had cleared away. A countdown rippled across the hundreds of people gathered on the coast and the sun rose.

Eventually everyone dispersed — to cars, to restaurants, to events happening in the park. My friend and I ran into a restaurant to de-thaw with a huge haemul jjim, spicy steamed seafood. Torn up by the wind, by our tiredness, the rest of the day was very quiet. We stayed at the beach until well into the afternoon getting coffee on the second floor overlooking the sea. The other families and couples around us seemed in quiet good spirits as well, taking selfies at the window and unwinding.

In Korea, as in other places, you make a wish for the new year. I don't remember now what I wished for seeing those first few rays, but I feel whatever it was, it has been fulfilled in so many ways through the time I had this spring, time to relax, explore and build friendships without the pressure of the future.