September 30th, 2007

Well, it’s a quiet, uneventful Sunday – a good day for a trip to the market and a letter home.

I won’t comment on work. I’ll leave that out of my letters. With things changing day-to-day, anything I say now will be irrelevant by tomorrow.

Outside of the drama that goes with working for Koreans, I’ve been enjoying life. Having passed that halfway point in my contract, I’m just focusing on the things I like most.

Yesterday was a bit of a fun day in Seoul. We went to the Chun Gye Cheon Festival downtown. Then with a buzz on we toured the old, narrow alleys of Jong No that are pure, rustic and timeless.

I also found a bookstore with a decent foreign books section. The selection is still disappointing – mostly best-sellers and the classics, but I’m not at home and that’s to be expected.

I picked up Hemmingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” – because I love stories about Spain. It’ll make better subway reading than the local “for shit” English newspaper.

I’ve been spending a lot of my down time here on the computer lately, learning how to use the damn thing. I feel years behind everyone.

I think I’ve now got the entire collection of “Putumayo Recordings” in my itunes library – which I highly recommend, especially the Brazilian compilations. So my apartment sounds like a Starbucks.

My boss bought me a little television but I haven’t turned it on in months, and hope I never have to.

I enjoy my little Sunday trips to the market. I never thought that I would hear myself say that grocery shopping was fun – but it’s all the little things that are the adventure here.

Buying tea can, in itself, be an experience. The options are endless. I think you could live here for years and not finish trying them all. The labels are hard to read and sometimes the pictures aren’t much help. You experiment. And, as with so many things, memory is key. I have no memory but I’m a note-taker. This month, I’m going with ginseng, plum and peppermint.

At the butcher, I figure note-taking is essential. You can’t just say – pig please. You have to name specific body parts. It’s hard work.

Another quirky thing I noticed at the market is that there doesn’t seem to be any concept of a “dozen” here. My eggs come in packs of ten.