During this vacation we spent several days over the Chusok Holiday (추석, Korea’s harvest thanksgiving) at my mother-in-law’s home in the farm country outside Tae-an, very near the west coast. For the first time on a trip to Korea, I didn’t spend any time in Seoul, aside from transiting through the express bus terminal, which was kind of nice. Like most places with a bit of flat land in Korea, Tae-an has lots of rice fields.

What rice in the field looks like a little closer up:

I noticed that the roadways in the fields had been improved since the last time I was at my mother-in-law’s place in 2005 - new concrete roads all over. These turned out to be perfect for jogging as there was not large or fast traffic, a slight breeze kept mosqitos away, and it wasnt’ the time of year that fertilizer was put out, at least on the rice:

The village is close to the coast, and an inlet comes in far enough that saltwater is evaporated in shallow pools in order to collect salt:

There are some larger Western style tractors in South Korea, but he vast majority are smaller machines with flexible configurations, ideal for rice fields and other jobs Korean farmers need to accomplish. The back portions can be swapped out for different jobs (though it doesn’t look like that’s done often), and is where the seat is located. Most are some sort of trailer bed, though I did see one tiller attachment:

The village also still has a few of the more traditional homes built in the early post-war years. Unfortunately none are in very good shape. My mother-in-law tore her’s down in 2001 in favor of new construction, but my wife’s aunt still lives in something similar to this:

And there are some nice beaches along the coast near Tae-an. This one is covered with surf-rounded pebbles - there is no sand:

I hadn’t been to Korea in over three years, and there are several changes. One of the first I noticed was that license plates are in the process of being changed over from green to white. It turns out that the green plates were issued by individual provinces, but the national government will now issue license plates. The old green plates were the same shape as U.S. plates (though the holes don’t match up), while the new plates are in both U.S. and European styles:

On the topic of cars, another change since 2005 is that now everyone and their brother has a GPS navigation system. I’ve never seen a country more given to buying trinkets for their cars (extra mirrors, steering wheel attachments, seat covers, etc.) than South Korea, and now navigation systems are in. Some of them are digital mobile video capable as well – they can pick up broadcasts from the cellular network, and even play DVDs, which is exactly what South Korean roads need – drivers watching DVDs, probably while on their cell phone.

We ended up having to attend a wedding in Daejon. It was at a nice wedding hall and it was fast; they covered everything, from vows, a special video, photos, a special song, cutting the cake, etc. I would not have been surprised to see a bed drop from the ceiling so the crowd could witness the consummation and conception of their first child at the same time. At any rate, we rode with a relative who had a Hyundai Genesis, which is their latest luxury car. The go for around U.S. $50,000 in Korea (taxes), but will be in the low $30,000 for the U.S. market. It was a nice ride with all the options.

Something I noticed in the late 1990s in Korea is that when stopped at a light, Korean’s almost universally put their vehicle in neutral and put on the park break. I witnessed this in dozens of taxis as well as with my Korean friends and relatives. On this trip I asked one of my brothers-in-law if that was something they learned in driving school. He said he didn’t think so, that he thought it might help fuel economy and that he thought it was just, “common sense.” So I told him to look at the tachometer and put it in park to see if there was any difference. There wasn’t. He kind of shrugged, and put it back in neutral.

And while I’d read about the changes in ROK paper money, I hadn’t heard about the new 10 won coin, which is smaller (slightly smaller than a U.S. penny), aluminum, and copper clad. The old coin was larger clad is a brass colored metal:

It was good to see everyone in Korea, but it was also good to get back home.