a plan has formed

I do plan to do a long walk over Chuseok break, but not until tomorrow night. It'll be a nighttime walk from Yangpyeong to Yeoju—a good 30K, which I haven't done in a while. Once I'm at Yeoju, it's a simple matter of grabbing a morning express bus back to Seoul.

Saturday night (Chuseok night), I'll be Skyping with my buddy Mike. These conversations can go for an hour or two; I'm excited to see how my new computer handles the Skype communication. Mike had offered to talk via Skype last week, but he said he was going to be in a car, and I didn't want to bother with potentially annoying lapses in communication, so I said we could talk this coming weekend.

Today, I'm working my way through Season 2 of Genndy Tartakovsky's "Primal," Season 2. There'll be a review, of course. Ever since I changed my Chase Amazon Visa's billing address to my Korean address (my brother David is moving, so I can no longer use his address), Amazon will no longer let me order videos via Prime. It's weird: I can still use my credit card to buy clothes and other items from Amazon's main store, and I can still order Kindle ebooks, but TV shows and movies are now unavailable unless I use a card with an American billing address. I may have to obtain a "virtual address" in the States (actually, I think I have one), but I'm reluctant to switch my Chase Visa back to an American address. I might use the virtual address for something else. In the meantime, switching back to an American address is complicated because, with my Netflix account, I registered a Korean billing address. Netflix was also very picky during the registration process; I had to go through some gymnastics (with the help of my American coworker) to be able to secure an account. Yeesh. So I was and am caught in a bind: having an American billing address causes problems, but so does having a Korean billing address. Many of the movies I might get on Amazon Prime will now have to be purchased via Apple TV (iTunes, as such, no longer exists: there's Apple TV and Apple Music).

My other action item today is to make pie filling with the remainder of my Chuseok-gift apples. I'm not sure when I'll deliver a completed pie to Charles, but by making the filling, I don't have to worry about the apples rotting before I use them—at least, not for several days. Come to think of it, I could convert a pie run to Charles's residence into a walk project by cabbing out to his place, dropping off the pie, then walking back to my place along the river (that's 20-21K). Since this vacation is five days long, doing a single long walk feels a bit wimpy.

September will be cooling off toward the end of the month, with temps somewhere between 24ºC and 26ºC (75-79ºF), so I might start doing more daytime walks—maybe even on weekdays if I can persuade myself to wake up early enough (for some reason, I instantly become a morning person during my long, trans-Korea walks, but once I'm back in civilization, I revert to my vampiric schedule). I need to toughen up a bit before I get down to Jeju-do; it wouldn't do to hit the trail while completely out of shape. Not that I haven't been walking this whole time, but I haven't done anything over 25K recently, and I really, really need to get back to stairs training. Jeju's got some hilly trails.

I also need to do the thing I was supposed to do last week: call down to Jeju and make reservations at all the pensions where I'll be staying. While October might not be the height of tourist season, the weather tends to be much more pleasant, so there might still be plenty of crowds at that time of year. I've got one or two motels/hotels/minbak where I'll be staying, so I won't need reservations for those places, but pensions can sometimes be antsy about that, so I want to err on the side of caution and make my reservations well in advance. So—reservations. Another thing to do over the break.

It occurs to me that I also need to take care of my A/C, which has a mold problem, and since my kitchen sink has developed a leak, I'll need to call in about that as well, but that may have to wait until Tuesday, when we're all back at work.

Overall, I think my break is going to look like this:

Thursday (today): binge-watch "Primal," work on pie filling
Friday (day): start calling ahead about reservations in Jeju
Friday (night): train out to Yangpyeong, then walk out to Yeoju
Saturday (day): rest
Saturday (night): Skype with Mike
Sunday (day): work on A/C fan (remove & wash)
Sunday (evening/night): not sure... maybe walk down to Bundang
Monday (day): launder bedding again
Monday (night): walk out to Jamshil Bridge and back

I was kind of hoping that the methylcellulose I'd ordered from Amazon would have come in by now, but it hasn't (it's in Korea, slowly passing through Customs). Methylcellulose is a crucial ingredient in making veggie burgers, and I had thought to do some experimentation with that this weekend, but that's going to have to wait for another time.

Otherwise, I guess I'll just be lounging, reading, and maybe working on my much-delayed book project. You got any Chuseok plans, or are you waiting for Thanksgiving?