Today I went into Seoul and met some friends.
First, my friend Peter and I met at Anguk and did some book shopping. Then we met my other friend Seungbae. Seungbae has a car, such as it is: he described his decrepit yellow van to Peter as his “Korean West Virginia Van” by which he meant to describe its origins in the Hantuckian southwest of the peninsula. It’s a kind of running bit of humor he’s had with me.
“Let’s drive to Mexico,” he announced.
So we did.
We went to Pyeongtaek, which is Korea’s Mexico. By which I mean, only, that in Pyeongtaek there is an authentic Mexican restaurant run by authentic Mexicans. Seungbae and I spoke Spanish with the owner. I’ve visited this place before, with this friend (a few years ago), but it was the first time for my other friend Peter.
I regretted not being able to enjoy spicy food, currently, but I had some bland but good tacos al pastor, and drank horchata.
Actually, we spent most of the afternoon there, talking. The part of the afternoon not spent there, talking, were mostly spent driving around. Seungbae has a very improvisational style of vehicular navigation that leads to a lot scenic detours.
Returning to north Seoul at 6 pm or so, I was struck by how smoggy it was looking. The view of the haze-shrouded highrises from the Gyeongbu expressway approaching Gangnam from the south made me feel like I was on the 405 in L.A.
Seungbae dropped us off at the Express Bus terminal in Gangnam, because it conveniently is located at the intersection of the two subway lines we needed – Peter to go home to Bucheon and me to go home to Ilsan.
After riding the subway home (another hour), I emerged at Juyeop right after dark, to capture the orangy supermoon rising over Jungangno. Why does an orangy supermoon look so small and unsuper in this photo? It was spectuclar in real life.
Here is the book I bought earlier that I’m most intrigued by: a Korean and English dictionary of Buddhist Terms.
[Update 2013-06-26: it turns out my friend Peter blogged this day, too. I think it’s novel enough to make a note of it here – it’s a chance for someone to see two different people blogging the exact same experience.]
