Random Chuseok pictures.

Here's a dump of pictures I took during my Chuseok vacation.  I'm too lazy to narrate all this so just drink it in with your eyes.

I awoke Chuseok Day to this traffic jam outside my apartment.  It stretched as far as I could see in both directions.  Everyone is heading north, away from the city.  In the evening I saw its mirror image--everyone heading south, back in to Seoul.

This was going on outside Seoul Station.  I'm too lazy to visit Google Translate and try to figure it out.

A clean, modern-looking train!

The inside is like a plane's first class cabin.

This is what Korea looks like from a train platform.  The banner on the left advertises Bible Expo 2010.

This mural is painted outside a school.  I was amused by its token black man.

Local garden:  ugly.

Yep, it's real:  designer clothes marketed as an indianesque return to nature.

This is Songtan Station, but all the stations I passed through look exactly like it.  Hideous.

The "Clean Zone" outside the station is ironically filthy.

This is a busy 5-way intersection, underneath an overpass, with very bad sight lines and little illumination:  dangerous!  The overpass also provides shelter for a small market.

After being told by the Canadian embassy that I'm too weird to be given a passport, I visited a museum that has a scale model of Seoul inside!  It's kind of neat.

The model includes subway stations.  The northeasternmost one is Hagye, which is 4 stops south of my home station. My area is so far away from the parts of the city that matter that it doesn't rate inclusion in Model Seoul!

Seoul's foreigners aren't all white Americans teaching English.  Part of Itaewon is home to Africans, Arabs, Pakistanis, and other Muslim types.  They've even built a mosque!

This sort of infrastructure clusterfuckery tells you the Islamic part of town is low-rent.

I believe it's called the Seoul Central Mosque.

Wandering near Dongdaemun I saw this thing.

It's Dong Shin Presbyterian Church!

I needed dice for my after-school class on Monday, so I hit up Dongdaemun's legendary toy alley.  I eventually found dice, but it took a while.  This place is chaos.

Toy Alley also has many stationery stores, some containing hilarious Engrish.

Definitely do not ask a Korean what this is about.  You're far better off reading about it in Wikipedia.

Gwanghwamun station is very retro chic.

I hope this is an ad for a place that sells duvets.

Admit it, you're enjoying a juvenile laugh.  Don't be ashamed.

Subway art:  What connects the black shopper, naked runner, two modern dancers and construction worker?  Presumably, the subway.

A public service announcement.  Youth keepers, your days are numbered!

This subway car is almost at capacity.