Chungju
Today I packed up and headed south to Chungju (Choongju) with my wife and brother-in-law to spend the Lunar New Year holiday with their parents. My wife and I are going to take an express bus back to Seoul early Friday morning. Hopefully, we won’t be hitting any traffic then. Today, we weren’t so lucky.
On a normal day, a bus ride to Chungju takes anywhere between 1.5 and 2 hours. Today, it took us nearly 4.5. The worst part was that we weren’t on one of the deluxe express buses that I love so much. Those buses have fewer seats, all of which are bigger and more comfortable. Plus, the leg room rocks. I have long legs. The normal express buses make me feel like my knees are pushing into my chest. Four hours of that is excruciating. Thankfully, though, my wife reserved our seats on the back row, giving me a little more leg room than usual. I was limping after we arrived, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. And at least we were able to make the trip, unlike those poor souls in China right now
My mother-in-law rewarded us with a big pot of duck soup almost as soon as we walked through the door. It was accompanied by a couple of bottles of cold beer, some soju (none for me, thanks) and some homemade wine (none of that either). There will be much more food to be eaten and quite a bit more alcohol to be drunk tonight and throughout tomorrow.
My wife and I are both relieved that we were able to work out our problems before the holiday. Her parents were, and still are, unaware of what transpired. We had agreed while we were separated that we would make the trip together and pretend that everything was fine. Neither of us wanted to break the news to them. Anyway, we don’t have to worry about that now. Though I’ve heard that my elder sister-in-law has a few things to say to me. I’ll try not to get trapped alone with her over the holiday 