Day 464: Choke

We all slept in today, and it was nice to wake up and not have to run off anywhere. We had some breakfast and then just hung out for a while. Later on one of the residents on the island who's brother owned the pension we were staying at offered to give us a ride out to see the new house he's building.

We all climbed into his van and drove on up the road to the hilltop where he was building a new house that would eventually be turned into rooms for rent for tourists. The view from the top was quite amazing, stretching out across the island and over the sea. My eyes were drawn to the horizon, to the mainland visible in the distance across the water. There we could barely make out the city of Incheon, which is the the literal edge of the megacity of Seoul. And above the city was a massive, heavy, thick cloud of browny yellow smog, just sitting over the city. It was disgusting. The air in all other directions was grey and misty and clean, but towards the city you could actually see the blanket of pollution that has a strangle-hold on Seoul.

We all just stopped and stood at that putrid smog, in a somber silence, realizing that *that* is the air that we have to breathe each and every day in the city. No wonder people are always sick in the city, why your lungs never feel clean, why your throat is always coated in phlegm, why you lose breath easily, why you get a virtual oxygen high every time you leave the city. It's that smog that chokes us every day, and god only knows what the long-term effects of living in that atmoshperic toxic dump must have. I used to think that Vancouver and LA had smog problems. Not anymore!

Later on in the afternoon we caught our ferry home just in time as the rains arrived. Time to go back to the city, back to work tomorrow. The escape was short but pleasant and already we're planning another weekend away. Bring on the routine of weekend getaways! :-)