Category: Banalities & Journaling

I went to Seoul today, and saw my friends Peter and Basil. I may not see them again for a while. Actually, it's been a few years since I last saw Basil, since he'd gone to live in Turkey for a few years. But he's back in Gwangju, so he came up to Seoul for the weekend.

We met at exit 7 of the 동대문역사문화공원역 (Dongdaemun History and Culture Park Subway Station), which is possibly the longest-named subway station in Seoul. It also is a pretty complicated station, with three separate lines and a maze of passages under the neighborhoods above. Anyway, this is the area that I have always called in my mind "Russiatown" – but there's nothing official in that designation, and in recent years the area that had once had the gritty feel of a Central Asian (ex-Soviet republics) immigrant ghetto has been gentrifying quite a bit. But this is the place where I first met Peter, at some party Basil was hosting at a Kazakh-Russian restaurant we've frequented there.

So here is exit 7, looking across the street at a snazzy new cafe with a Russian name next to a 7-11 store.

Here is my never-to-be-missed bowl of borscht, my beloved staple of Russian cuisine.

We took a group photo in front of the restaurant afterward.

Then we went to Gangnam. This is standing at Samseong Station (COEX Mall) looking west along Teheran-ro toward central Gangnam.

I saw this house which I liked architecturally – a rare post-war but pre-boom bit of architecture in otherwise boomified Gangnam.

Basil wanted to go to a bakery in Gangnam that served San Francisco sourdough style bread. It was called "Bob's Bread," which makes me think of my friend Bob, who often ate simple bread (arguably he gave me the habit of enjoying bread without anything on it – just bread).

Then we took a taxi to Itaewon, where Basil always stays when he comes to Seoul. I only ever ride a taxi in Seoul when I'm with Basil. He likes taking taxis places, whereas I'm a subway/bus/walk type person. But no problem. There was a nice view of Bukhansan northward across the river, while we sat in traffic on Eonjuro. 

Itaewon is such an amazing place – the atmosphere there is more like Koreatown in LA, or the Village in NYC, than it is like anywhere else in Korea. There are crazy people ranting on the streets, crowds of foreign tourists and residents, Africans and Middle-Easterners hawking things, police patrols, US military on leave, etc. But it's been gentrified, too – 10 years ago, it ONLY had those things. Now there are hoards of Korean tourists, too, looking for an edgy out-of-country experience close to home. 

We went to a cafe and talked for a few more hours. Then I went home. … Well, I have to stop thinking of it as "home."

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Today when I went to the post office with my daily box, the woman at the counter recognized me. I took my number, and immediately she lit up her window with my number – how did she do that? I guess the place wasn't very busy. So we had a brief exchange about how I was sending a box every day. Then she was explaining, in Korean, to the man at the next window, about this American who mails a box to Alaska every morning.

It was funny. I've become a moment of intrigue and entertainment for the people working at the post office.

[daily log: walking, 7.5km; carrying heavy box to post office, 0.5km]

The Korean rainy season (장마) mostly seems to start like clockwork, right around July 1st each year. You can see it on my phone's weather forecasting app.

Or looking out the window works, too. Actually, it's been raining on and off already for the last few weeks. But the monsoon doubles down and just rains all the time. 

The rainy season is probably my favorite season in Korea. Despite the sticky warm temperatures, the green dampness reminds me of my childhood on the far north coast of California, which is climatologically part of the Pacific Northwest.

[daily log: walking, 7km]

There is an apparent 5-year cycle to my existence. Maybe. Well, for now.
Five years ago this week, I found out I had cancer. That radically altered my life and outlook.
Now, I am once again undergoing a transformation in my life and outlook, partly in response to “fate,” such as it is.
[daily log: walking, 7km]

France just called.

They want their statue back.

[daily log: walking, 1.5km]

I haven't had to deal with planning for a major move in a long time.

I went to buy some standard-sized boxes at the post office. It costs a little more than foraging for free boxes, but I like using standard-sized boxes where they are all the same. It helps me feel organized. These will boxes that I will ship back to the US – probably as "surface mail" which takes a long time on a boat but isn't that expensive.

The boxes from the post office are post office branded. They have a slogan in Korean and English printed on the side. The English slogan is a bit weird, because of the font they used. It sort of seems to say "May your day be filled with happimess" but I think the "m" is just a bad effort at a "sloppy" cursive-style "n".

My mess isn't making me happy. It's giving me stress. That's why I'm starting so early – it'll help to stretch the packing experience out over the next month or more.

[daily log: walking, 8.5km]

Juli and Keith have a dog. He is a dachshund named Walter.

He likes to eat carrots and strawberries. Which is strange for a dog, frankly. Sometimes when Arthur and I go out for a walk we take Walter along. He has to check his "pee-mail" as Juli likes to say. I think this is a hilarious concept, but weirdly accurate, as he must sniff every tree and bush between their house and the mailboxes up by the main road, which is about 1 km.

Here is Walter eating a strawberry. You can just sort of make it out entering his mouth. That's a blurry strawberry, not his tongue.

We had a very full morning of appointments, today down in the Portland at the VA, again. It's a hard situation. Sometimes we feel optimism, and sometimes we don't. Such is life.

[daily log: walking, 4km]

Juli is giving me pea soup to eat (she makes it in batches and has containers of it frozen). I like pea soup – as I've blogged before.

Today she gave me a bowl to put my pea soup in, and pointed out that my father had made the bowl. Really.

Back when I was quite young, my father and mother had a potter's wheel in the back shed at our house in Arcata. Both of them made pottery at various points. Apparently Juli has inherited portions of the collection that had been built up there – which is logical, as she and Keith were also members of the same community at that time.

So here is my pea soup. After I was finished, I washed my bowl and took it outside to photograph my father's signature on the bottom of the bowl.

 [daily log: walking, 2km]