Full moon

Every year in the autumn (or 'fall' as M. calls it) Koreans get this irrepressible urge to visit their ageing parents to celebrate Chuseok, the festival that traditionally celebrated the harvesting of crops, and have silly amounts of chewy rice cake. The exodus from Seoul to other smaller cities around Korea usually means that the highways are congested to the point where you can fall asleep in the car while waiting for the traffic to move. I've experienced this once when I was a child. The police had to drive up and down the hard shoulder, shouting out "Please wake up! You should be driving now!" for everyone on the road to start moving again.
"Be glad you're not here," ultrabioman said when she called from my parents' car as they left for my grandparents' house yesterday. I wonder if they're there yet?

Today has a different meaning, too. We were meant to have had a minute's silence at 11am (even sandwiches were provided) but no one seems to have taken any notice here. Being the emotional person that I am, I still get upset thinking about September 11 - all those lives for nothing. So much has happened since then the world seems almost unrecognisable.

I'm going to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival here (tomorrow is a holiday) in the Chinese way - have a Chinese feast with friends. We'll stare up at the full moon, if we can see it through the haze of a sky, tonight. And be thankful for what we have.