Koreans don’t traditionally celebrate New Year’s Eve based on the Gregorian calendar; however they do spend a lot and celebrate the lunar calendar’s new year.

When my husband in the Philippines, he experienced our festive New Year’s eve and that’s one of the thing he misses back in Korea. That’s why he urges me to welcome the New Year the way we do in the Philippines. I just didn’t feel like cooking or preparing anything this year. I thought that we’d just buy a cake but I changed my mind at the last moment. I guess I was just tired that day…

Anyway, my disappointed husband bought food at around 10:30 PM on New Year’s eve. So we had Korean street foods for our feast…

Tteokbokki or spicy rice cake is made from tube-shaped rice cake stir-fried with “gochujang” or red pepper paste. It’s available on the streets of Seoul for 1,000 won to 2,000 won per order.

Odeng is a type of fish cake. They come in a variety of shapes but our favorite is the tubular ones. Here, they’re cooked with a soup made with dried anchovies, radish and green onions. This is about 500 won per piece in Seoul.

Sundae (pronounced as “soon – deh”) is a Korean style sausage. The ones you can find on the streets are mostly made of clear noodles with pig blood stuffed in pig intestine. The more traditional kind is made of pig innards (like the Filipino bopiz). It’s about 2,000 won per order.