This is the Chuseok holiday – Korean Thanksgiving. This is the holiday where everyone in Korea goes back to their hometowns and pays respects to their ancestors. This is a holiday that celebrates traffic jams and excessive drinking.
I went down to the store yesterday, and the lines at the check outs were stretched back down the aisles of the store. The massive gravel parking lot at the Hanaro Mart (the town Co-op grocery) was absolutely full – which I've never seen before. The traffic circle was packed with cars in slow orbit, like a Paris intersection.
This is a town where no one wants to live, but everyone comes back to. The population must at least double during a "come back to your home town" type holiday. I went back to hide in my little apartment. The sky was blue but it was hot, yesterday. Then last night, somewhat surprisingly, it rained.
I listened to LCD Soundsystem and Atmosphere. I ate some yellow lentil dhal that I'd made on Sunday. Today I'm going to attempt to go up to Seoul for a day or two. I'm not sure how that's going to go.