Lunar New Year's Day has seen warmer-than-usual weather and smooth traffic throughout the capital.

Koreans on Sunday enjoyed traditional holiday food with families, paid respects to their ancestors and wished for a prosperous year.

Families gathered from near and far to exchange traditional bows, catch up on old times, ate rice cake soup and wished each another the best of health and luck for the year.

Palaces were crowded with citizens enjoying traditional cultural events in warm weather.

Visitors flocked to ancestral graves, leading to congested traffic near major metropolitan cemeteries such as in the northern Seoul suburbs of Paju and Goyang.

People whose hometowns are in North Korea visited the Unification Observatory and the Imjin Peace Pavillion in Paju to look over across the border.

The Korea Expressway Corporation said 650,000 cars left Seoul for the holiday period and that 340-thousand will return Sunday.

Traffic was smooth on major highways but more cars were expected to return to Seoul in the afternoon.

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