my friend changdi has invited me to spend the lunar new year with her family in chongdo! when she invited me back in seoul, i had such a crazy mental image of dragons and parades and fireworks... but i don't think that's what this trip is going to be about. chandi lives in the most remote village i've ever seen, on farmland that just her family owns. her grandparents and aunts live down the street, and the center of the town is a long drive away. no one speaks english, and changdi and i can only communicate with our collective basic korean... ALSO it's china's coldest winter in over one hundred years (and of course we have no central heat)... suffice to say, this trip is going to be interesting.
tonight the family welcomed us with a huge dinner and looots of tsingtao beer. i am the only westerner to ever come to their home and they are thrilled! and despite everything that could go wrong, i'm thrilled too :)
