The cross town shuffle, 9/11, Chuseok, and buying stuff

This first picture goes out to my friend Andrew's lovely wife, Kara. We do indeed have shoe stores here!

Next up's a shot of the countryside. Taken on the bus from Dongsong to Sincheorwon:

The cross town shuffle...my county, Cheorwon-gun (gun=county in Korean) has three major towns; Dongsong, Sincheorwon, and Wasu-ri. If you look at them on a map, they resemble an inverted triangle. Wasu-ri sits at the northernmost edge of the triangle, Dongsong has the western edge, and Sincheorwon has the southern edge. Two bus lines connect the towns because they both pass through the town of Munhye-ri. The yellow line runs from Sincheorwon to Dongsong and the green line runs from Sincheorwon to Wasu-ri.

Today I thought I'd do some exploring and hit all three towns in one swoop. My objective was to reach the international ATM in Dongsong to withdraw some cash, but Sincheorwon seemed appealing enough to wander around in for a bit, so I went there too.

Mission accomplished. After catching the 2:00pm bus to ??? village by mistake and returning within 20 minutes (it was only a short jaunt outside of Wasu), I caught the 2:20pm bus to Sincheorwon and began the journey. It went down well. Scott (who lives in Dongsong) had given me directions last night about how to get to the ATM and they were pitch perfect. The ATM worked perfectly as well.

I didn't hang around Dongsong too long, but I did buy a navy blue fishing vest at an outdoors store...think Kylie the opossum in Fantastic Mr. Fox or John Goodman in The Big Lebowski and you get the idea.

When I got home I did some more shopping for the apartment and bought rugs, picture frames, and computer speakers. The speakers turned out to have a buzzy subwoofer, but I've already gotten used it to it, 8-) It felt nice to have some louder music for a change. More work still needs to happen for the apartment to feel more like home, but it'll get there soon enough. For now, it seems like the shopping list consists of another rug or two, a couple of reading lights, some posters, and another clock. Having bare walls does not sit well with me.

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Tomorrow marks the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City. The International Herald Tribune has run some editorials about it and they got me thinking of how 9/11 links up with the Korean holiday of Chuseok (추선? I think), which is like the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving. In other words, over here we've got a festive time of family gatherings and food and back home there's bitter memories. Maybe some fear and loathing's in there, too. This blog isn't here for politics, but I can't help but wonder what people have on their minds in the US now. As I write this my cousin Brian (Mark's younger brother) has been deployed to Afghanistan. That war began 10 years ago too. I hope all goes well over there and he can come home safely as soon as possible. 
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Cheers.