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[steroidmaximus]

started off on the wrong foot -- I was supposed to stay home, work, meet up with a friend and his family and probably get drunk. It didn't happen. At the last moment, word comes in from the inlaws that Older Brother has come in from China, and couldn't we come for the visit?

Now don't get me wrong: I like my wife's family. They've been supportive, more than helpful, decent people. But undoubtedly one of the worst things about Korea is the ridiculous traffic around any major holiday. I'm convinced that my wife has started slipping me anti-depressants whenever we are to find ourselves in a car during Chusok, Solnal, the start of summer vacation; it's the only way I can explain my diminishing indignation. I used to love expounding passionately in vitriolic diatribe about the probable parentage of about 50% of the other drivers on the road around me; but alas, it no longer fills me with the same sense of self righteousness and has decreased in frequency. Maybe I'm getting older.

Off to the country we went.

Monday we hit the Costco on the way out to grab some LA kalbi and assorted sundries. Case of beer and meat in one arm, two kids and wife in the other, I loaded up into the Carnival ready for good down home time. But the mood was a bit less festive this year; the jeon and the japjae weren't as good, and nobody seemed to be drinking that much. Something was amiss, but I won't find out what for a couple of weeks. Nevertheless, I still ate my fill, drank some beer and took 18k from gostop.

18k??! you may say? Hah, that's nothing! Well, young padwan, this is your schooling: Gostop during family gatherings is not a superficial taking-the-next-sucker-for-all-they've-got kind of thing. Winning is usually not the best thing to do, because you're expected to pay for lunch the next day, for starters. This lunch will of course cost more than your winnings. Now for me, this year was different. The younger sister's brood wasn't about (we borrowed money from them a while back, and now understand just how cool banks can be some time i.e. with a bank you don't pay interest for ever. If only a bank would have been willing to loan to us *sigh*) and I'd bought apkujim for the older sister on my last visit, so I could take these suckers and not even have to worry about buying lunch bwahahahahaha. So I took 18K in pretty short order, and when I sat out a round to grab a smoke, the cards had strangely disappeared upon my return. Bummer. Actually, more like @$%#! So I went for a nice long walk by the river, read this and went to bed. HT to this blogger for a pretty good summary of newspaper articles surrounding the issue.

Tuesday was cool because I learned more about SamShin, the wise (?)grandmother(s) who escort(s) the recently deceased to the land of the dead. The parallels with Greek mythology forced me to evoke the name of Joseph Conrad, which made me feel a little dirty, but I got over it pretty quick (perhaps because of the aforementioned medication?).

Anyway, after the Chesa was done and breakfast consumed, we piled into two cars and went to an herb village. A heated herb pack was tossed onto my neck the moment I walked into the gift shop. This particular herb village doesn't charge admission, and makes more than an ample return from product sales alone. I don't know what kind of herbs were in that pack, but I felt compelled to spend money. It might have been the 20 minutes in the supravibramessage(TM) chair (2.5 million to own, if you're interested) which made me actually forget the pain behind my left shoulder blade, but I just had to whip out that KEB visa card and BUY something! Mission accomplished, we motored out to grab some noodles. Walking into the restaurant was weird: it was one of those everyone-stops-to-look-at-you-and-talk-about-you-because-you-are-a-damned-good-looking-mixed-couple-with-two-beautiful-daughters moments. Some of the looks and comments were less innocuous, but hey, I was feeling magnanimous! Let's just load up and go.

4 hours later, we arrived home. Unload car, put away groceries, read A Home for Hermit Crab and Gregory's Shadow, kids time to go to bed. Review notes and schedule for tomorrow, drink 5 beers, and post on Dave's. Now I'm going to bed after listening to Everlast's Black Jesus one more time. I gotta learn to do the Nananananana thing because my oldest really likes it.

That was my Chusok.

[VanIslander]

A friend came over, we went out for lunch, walked down to the riverside park, played some basketball, talked about stuff, met the new and only South African in town.

That was my Chuseok.

Nice but nothing special.

[sojourner1]

I flew and lost a day of Chuseok coming back to Korea off of emergency leave, but really was giving up the time I gained going to the US. I just arrived late tonight, Tuesday night and hope to recover from severe jet lag on this Wednesday what ever day and time it is. Crazy. I can still smell that weird airplane food odor that wafts about when they heat it before serving it and that ding of the seat belt light again and again. They need to do something about the food, the tiny seats that won't kick back far enough, and the long taxi out to the runway que in line times as going to Asia sure is a long flight. And get rid of the antiquated interior such as no smoking lights. The small closely spaced together seats are the only new features added on those 30 to 35 year old planes. I fantasized for hours on Monday and Tuesday somewhere high above no mans land or water if they could take out the 338 junk blue El Cheapo seats and put cubicles that you can lay down in, all stacked up on top of each other to the ceiling.
What airline I am talking about is another topic in another thread.