Weird card decks and other gaming curiosities...

I've just ordered some unusual games. Here's the deal:

During the first week of the quarter in Korean class, our instructor (이 선생님, remember?) brought in some games that are traditionally played in Korea during the New Year season (which in Korea ends around the 15th of January, apparently - until the lunar new years comes about...). One of them was called "yut" (윷), which is sort of like a Korean version of parcheesi - you know, the game where each person has multiple tokens that have to go around the board toward a goal. In this version, however, there are only two teams with four tokens each. The dice are unusual as well - they are basically four sticks with one curved side with designs and the other flat side with no embellishment. Moves are dependent on how many sticks appear with the designed side up. The other quirky thing about this game is that multiple tokens from the same team can move as one, which makes it easier 1) to get all your tokens around the board and 2) for the opposing team to knock multiple tokens off the board at one time.

The other game 이 선생님 demonstrated for us is "hwatu" (화투), a card game originally from Japan (where it is a "karuta" game called hanafuda) that is not as innocent as "yut" - apparently it involves gambling. Also, the fact that it's originally from Japan indeed still ruffles some feathers in Korea, to put it lightly. Anyway, there are a handful of suits which are recognizable from the background design. The object here is to rack up points by matching suits - the one with the most points gets the money. Sounds easy, right? Well, some cards have some other designs on top of the background ones which 1) really confuse greenhorn players and 2) are worth more points than plain suited cards.

I'll post some pictures soon.