Mount Seorak, published in The Korea Times Jan. 1, 1979. Korea Times Archive

Six weeks after I arrived in Korea, I fell madly in love — not with a person, but with the country itself.

That winter 35 years ago, I decided on a whim to join a tour group heading east for the Lunar New Year long weekend to Gangwon Province's Seoraksan National Park, home to one of Korea’s most famous mountain ranges. Seoul was already beginning to empty out for the holiday, and with several days off and nowhere in particular to be, the idea of disappearing into the mountains felt right.

Along withChuseok — the mid-autumn festival— Lunar New Year is one of the two most important holidays in Korea. They act as bookends to the year, with Lunar New Year falling in late January or early February and Chuseok in September or October, depending on how the lunar calendar lines up with the solar calendar that year. Both holidays center on returning to one’s hometown and honoring ancestors. They are also the busiest travel periods of the year, reminding me of American Thanksgiving.

Seollal blues, published in The Korea Times, Jan. 22, 1993. Korea Times Archive

Depending on the lunar calendar, these holidays can stretch from three to five days, and in February 1991, Korea was in for the full five-day spectacle. Train and bus tickets went on sale weeks in advance. Travelers lined up for hours at terminals, hoping to secure a seat home. For those driving, the stories were legendary, with tales of 16-hour journeys between Seoul and Busan and traffic creeping along so slowly that the expressways became a parking lot.

But for foreigners who stayed behind in Seoul, the holidays brought a different experience. The city emptied out. Streets normally choked with traffic became eerily quiet. Crossing town was suddenly effortless, but most small businesses were closed, their blue metal security doors pulled down like eyelids. Seoul felt suspended in time, peaceful and strange.

The bus left Seoul at noon in a steady rain, its windows fogged from the breath of sleeping passengers. Coats were piled on laps. Heads leaned against the glass. As we left the city behind, traffic thickened with buses and cars all pointed east, windshield wipers keeping time as the gray afternoon unspooled. Holiday travel in Korea was its own kind of endurance ritual, and I had entered it lightly prepared, with no more than gimbap and bottled water.

Lunar New Year mass migration traffic, published in The Korea Times Feb. 18, 1988. Korea Times Archive

The countryside slid past in muted winter tones. We passed through small towns that seemed to echo one another — clusters of low concrete or wooden houses tucked behind fences, streets quiet under the weight of the holiday. Shops were shuttered, signs in Hangeul announcing pharmacies, restaurants and bathhouses, but nothing stirred behind their doors.

Source: Korea Times News