My wife decides that we will go see the first sunrise. "What a good idea," I think, "A good way to get the kids outside."

Sunrise is at 7:34, it is 7:05. "Let's go to the administration building," I suggest, "It has a good eastern view."

"Let's go to Obongsan." She says.

"Okay. Where's that?" I ask, thinking there are not many mountains we are going to be able to get to in 30 minutes.

"You know, they place that Lucy picked up a tissue."

Perhaps my wife's knack for picking out the most useless characteristic of a thing to describe it should be the subject of another blog post.

"It doesn't matter," she says, "I have it on the navigation."

It turns out that Obongsan is an old name for Chimsan– the mountain, in the middle of Chiman-dong, on which one finds such parks as Chimsan park.

We get there quickly enough, in under the 10 minutes that the navigation predicted, but getting to a mountain and to the top of the mountain are on somewhat different time-frames.

We run to the stairs up the mountain and start climbing.

The sky is lightening, but there are clouds to the East, and the sum is not yet showing.

Turns out we are not the only ones with the idea of watching the first sunrise. After 15 years in Korea, this is the first time that I have heard that this is a tradition.

Piles of people are climbing the mountain. There is music and a projected voice from what seems like the top of the mountain. Like a radio DJ hyping the coming sunrise. People are packed on the eastern side of the mountain park, watching the clouds in the east as they are gradually lightened by patches of blue sky, bordered with seams of reflected orange.

It is past 7:34, but the sun has not broken, through the clouds.

"Just thirty seconds," I hear the DJ announce as we are hurrying to find a space at the top of the mountain.

There is music and rising drums. People smiling and are greeting each other, as a they point their phone east for the first rays of sum.

The drums keep rising. There is a point, I suppose, a theoretical point, beyond which drums can no longer rise. And yet the sun has not broken through, and the drums keep rising to build our anticipation. Somehow the DJ distracts us with another "Thirty more seconds!" so that the drums can lull without us knowing. The impression is that they are always rising. Masterfully done.

We get to the top of the mountain and press ourselves in amongst the crowd of east facing cameras.

"Get your phones ready..." urges the DJ, "Just thirty more seconds!"

"Higher Lucy," I urge, "Raise you camera to the mother loving sky!"

"Just five more seconds," yells the DJ, "Let's count it down."

"Five!"

"Four!" it is just him. "Everybody!" The drums are rolling with a new found intensity. Rising to unknown heights.

"Three!" Some people join in. It is infectious.

But there is a a current of doubt. It appears that there are a handful of people that do not think the count will coincide with any sudden solar event.

"Two!" More join it.

"One!" The DJ is elated, "The first rays of sun! Happy 2024!" The music explodes. The Big Drum syncopates across the mountain-top.

There is cheering!

But there are also a lot of people looking around. No sun has really broken through the clouds.

"Take your pictures and then move carefully down the hill!" I am not perhaps capturing the mood of the DJs words here, but this is the essence. He wants to get home.

People trade greetings, but there are a lot of people here, a lot of strangers. This is not the greeting at your companies new years lunch. Most people just greet their family and go back to waiting for the sun to break the clouds.

Maybe not most. Half. They other half seem to feel that that is a heck of a lot of clouds, and it could take an hour. The crowd slowly starts thinning as local dignitaries start their greetings.

How dignitary, I don't know, but one women starts, "I glad to see so many of you made it here to our local celebration after reading about this on the internet. Even though you are no from Chimsan like me. Thank you all for coming and have a happy new year!"

My Korean isn't so good, but the greeting seems a little resentful of numbers that perhaps they weren't expecting.

Many in the still thinning crowd stick it out until the sun breaks through the clouds at 7:58. There is genuine cheering, as the DJ announces, "And for those who waited around for the first rays of sun, now we have it."

The drums are no longer rising. The dancers have already gone down the hill as they were scheduled to. But there is a great feeling of community among those that have stayed.

I guess it is hard to schedule a sunrise. Perhaps that is why we have gone, in Canada, to watching a taped broadcast of the ball dropping in Times Square.

But I'm glad my wife and daughter insisted we come to Obongsan for this authentic Korean experience. It is worth waking up early for.