Posts tagged LunarNewYear

I take back what I said in my last post regarding snow and traffic. We left the house around 2:00 pm Sunday. Just as we were leaving, it started to snow. Traffic was light on the expressway until we were under a kilometer away from the tollgate south of Seoul. Then it came to a halt. I’ve been in bad traffic in Korea, particularly so on major holidays, but this was arguably the worst I’d ever seen. I’ve no idea what sort of traffic reports my wife was watching, but they were off by quite a bit.

We left the expressway and hit the back roads. Traffic was very, very light off the highways. It seems everyone on the mass holiday exodus thinks the expressway is faster, even when traffic is heavy. I don’t quite get that logic. I’m certain that, had we stayed on the expressway, it would have taken us around six hours to make the trip (which is an-hour-and-a-half in normal conditions). On the back roads, we were able to make it in under four hours, and that includes a little over an hour stuck in traffic on the expressway and a 20-minute break at a rest stop.

My advice to anyone making a road trip out of Seoul during the Lunar New Year or Chuseok holidays: don’t. But if you must, don’t take a bus. Even the bus lanes get clogged with traffic when people get frustrated. You’d be better off in a car, if you can get one, and on the empty back roads.

I had intended to post a picture of the food laid out for the traditional ceremony my wife’s family carries out, like nearly every other Korean family in the country, every Lunar New Year. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to put the SD card back in my camera before I left. The pic is in the camera’s local memory, but I can’t find the cable I need to plug it into a USB port. I always just remove the SD card and plug it into a reader. If I manage to dig up the cable today, I’ll get the pic posted. Otherwise, I’ll just leave it be. It’s not important anyway.

The trip home this morning was nice and quick. It only took us an hour and forty minutes. I suppose most people will be heading back to Seoul tonight and tomorrow. The city is still empty now. That’s a sight I don’t get to see often anymore. Before I got married, I was in Seoul for both major holidays every year. It’s amazing to see a city of several million people practically empty out over night. The crowded streets and sidewalks become deserted. Since I’ve been married we’ve headed to my wife’s home town for the major holidays, along with millions of others hitting the road at the same time.

These days, more people stay in Seoul than a decade ago as a result of more immigrants from the country towns having become grandparents. Their grown children don’t have to leave the city to visit them. They get to enjoy the lack of traffic and crowds, miss the mass exodus, and make a day trip to their ancestral graves in the country (if they so choose) after the highway traffic has died down.

Still, I don’t think we’ll be taking advantage of the emptiness today. We’ll probably just spend a leisurely day at home. Though this would be a good day to see a movie…

Happy Lunar, or Chinese, or Korean, New Year.

For the past two days I’ve been at my in-laws’ house stuffing myself with a great deal of food, beer, and an assortment of specialty alcohols. It’s been spaced out fairly well, though, so while my stomach feels like it will explode I haven’t gotten drunk at all. But it’s only late afternoon, so I don’t know what condition I’ll be in a few hours hence.

I’m happy that we didn’t take off to my father-in-law’s birth place to pay homage to his parents and grandparents at their graves. Not only is it a PITA to get to the graves, which are on a mountainside that can only be accessed by jumping the barrier of a relatively new expressway, we usually wind up visiting his stepmother. She’s a really old lady who lives in a traditional style house in which I can’t stand up straight. My father-in-law is the only one who likes to go, so the rest of the family managed to talk him out of it this year.

We did do the traditional honoring of the ancestors at the house, though. That’s mandatory, regardless of whether we visit the graves. I snapped a shot of the spread they laid out this time. I’ll post it when I get home tomorrow. We’ll be taking an 8:35 bus in the morning, so hopefully I’ll be home well before noon. I want to get some exercise as early as I can tomorrow to work off some of the weight I know I’ve gained the last few days. Outback on Monday, On the Border on Tuesday, plus all the food for the past two days coupled with very little exercise over the past three weeks makes me a bit nervous. The last thing I want to do is reverse three months of progress.

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

Sunday, Jan 29 is Lunar New Year day. As we do every year, my wife and I will be taking a 2 hour trip south of Seoul to her home town. There’s always a mass exodus during this holiday as millions of other Seoulites do the same. We normally leave the day before, but this year we are leaving 2 days prior in order to avoid traffic. The 2 hour trip can turn into 6 hours if we don’t time it right. It’s actually Friday morning here in Korea as I post this, and we will be heading out in a couple of hours.It’s equally important to time the return trip. This year, we will be returning in the early afternoon on New Year’s Day. The traffic has become unpredictable in the past few years, but I’m hoping we won’t hit it on the return. Wish me luck!