Let Chuseok Begin!

My appologies for the lack of entertainment value in recent posts. Those things are boring! It seems that when I actually have things to do, there is little time to pick apart and make fun of the small things in life as I usually do.

So. Thursday was "Chuseok." Chuseok is a kind of a big deal. It's the Korean thanksgiving, only as an added bonus, they visit the graves of their ancestors and dead family members. Families get together, eat, and have a little ceremony. The men then travel around to the houses of other family members while the women stay home and cook for the travelling eaters.

"So how were you planning on spending your biggest vacation of the year?" you ask. "I'm glad you asked," I say, and then I tell you.

You see, transportation in Korea, especially around holidays is tricky. No matter how many buses, planes, trains, cars, and boats there are, there is no way to physically accomodate all of the people who want to get out and visit those ol' bag of bones they call family. Our school told us about the holiday kind of late, so our PLAN A was doomed from the start.

PLAN A
Our first plan, formulated long ago, was to go to China. Alas, the only tickets we could get would only let us stay 2 days and only 2 people could go. So, unless one of us volunteered not to go or died (death being more likely), Plan A would not come to fruition.

PLAN B
Visit Mt. Soraksan and hike for 4 days and stay in shelters. The mountain is supposed to be very beautiful with lots of waterfalls. Plus the leaves are just starting to change. Ahh yes. Fall in Korea. It couldn't be more beautiful. This was surely the perfect plan. We were also supposed to meet a friend from church. But, as Robert Burns wrote, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley." And gang a-gley they did.
Here is the harrowing tale of how this once great and mighty plan shrivelled into a heaping mess:
Our friend we were supposed to meet forgot to tell us which bus to take and where to meet. We emailed her, but her address didn't work. By the time we had the correct address, she was out of town again with no cell phone. No problem. We just wouldn't meet up with her. We got our co-workers to help us figure stuff out, and after a few phone calls, we found the correct bus terminal and how to get there. The only two buses were at 11 am and 6 pm, and it is a 5 hour trip, so we had to make the 11 am bus.
We packed up and left at 9:15, full of excitement and a sense of adventure. However, we soon got off on the wrong foot by getting off the city bus early, causing us to high-tail it to the bus station on foot. We finally reached the bus station, a little before 11, perhaps a little disgruntled, but all in one piece and ready to go....where we promptly found that the tickets were sold out. On to PLAN C.


PLAN C
After a few minutes of thinking and debating, we decided to go to McDonald's.














That's not where this story ends! It will be continued....