Chuseok

Chuseok is the Korean thanksgiving holiday and it provides a nice little break in the middle of September. I got three weekdays off. So with the weekend, it was five days free from work.

COVID-19 cases were elevated at the start of Chuseok but the government loosened social distancing restrictions during this holiday time to allow for more family gatherings and to relieve some of the financial pressure on businesses.

With about 80% of the COVID-19 cases centred in the Seoul area, residents of other parts of Korea requested that those from Seoul not travel for fear of spreading the virus around the country.

As for me, once again I decided to stay close to home and forgo any travel. Just about every day of the holiday, I walked to Dadaepo beach, enjoyed a latte in a cafe, and relished my free time. I prepared a few of my lessons for the coming weeks to get ahead of the work. After Chuseok, most of my classes will be in-person so I won't have as much time for lesson planning during the workday.

While visiting the beach, I spotted a heron in an adjacent wetland and spent a few minutes observing him pluck fish from the water. 

We had a few severe rainstorms during the holiday and got caught in a windstorm on my way home. My umbrella was blown inside-out.

The holiday flew by and before I knew it, I was back at work finishing off the week. I had only 3 classes on Thursday and Friday, so my return to work wasn't too painful.

Predictably, there was a spike in COVID-19 cases due to the movement around the country during Chuseok. We actually saw a record high for the daily COVID-19 count on Friday. Then, the new record was shattered the next day on Saturday with over 3000 cases for the first time in the pandemic. The previous record was 2200 in one day.