today, it's all okay. today, I believe that I will get a job soon and it will be fine. the last couple of days have been the kind of days I want to save, so that later I can pull them out and curl up inside them like a sleeping bag. nothing outwardly exciting has happened.

I've been re-reading harry potter and the deathly hallows, which I am enjoying so much more the second time around, since I'm savoring it rather than racing through it to see what happens. I think I will read them all again, maybe backwards.

I went and talked to john about the possibility of coming back to strand. he told me to talk to eddie. I called eddie, who told me he would talk to carson and that either he or carson would call me back. that was two days ago, and they haven't called me back, and I find myself almost hoping they don't. I mean, of course I would go back, since I need a job and it would be irresponsible of me not to take that one if it was offered. and despite what john thinks, I would work hard. but I know that it would be better for me not to go backwards, I know that any one of the jobs I've sent out resumes for would be better for me than strand. I just feel better having inquired, though- now I don't feel like I'm sitting on my ass unnecessarily.

last night I went to katherine & matt's. I discovered that it takes me less than 15 minutes to walk there, through a part of my neighborhood I'd never seen before. they fed me, and we watched lots of t.v., and I fell asleep pleasantly intoxicated on their couch, with the most wonderful pillow ever. it was one of those memory foam pillows, and I kept turning over every which way, fascinated by the fact that every position was comfortable. I slept soundly, and woke up early this morning and left with katherine at 8:30, walking home through a glorious, sunny morning in brooklyn. I so rarely see those early morning hours lately that when I do, I'm fascinated and blown away by the different quality of the light, its newness and its subtle promises.

now it's 10 am, and I have an entire day stretching before me. I will finish harry potter, then comb the internet for more jobs to apply to.

today, it's all fine.

there are certain moments, certain hours even, that you can't write about too quickly. you have to let them settle first. if you try to pin them to the page too soon, you'll only diminish them. I had one of those times a few hours ago, on a mountain overlooking daegu. maybe I'll write about it later, but maybe I won't. maybe I'll just keep it for myself, save it in a little pine box in my memory to take out and look at from time to time. maybe I'll set it free. we'll see.

alright, last weekend.



saturday was gorgeous. I hopped a late-morning train to seoul, just me, my backpack, and two goals: to do a bit of hiking (there is a mountain is the middle of the city) and to return to the seoul museum of art and actually see some korean art this time. the train ride between daegu and seoul seems shorter each time I take it. I arrived in seoul around noon, and jumped on the subway. I seem to have finally figured out the seoul subway system for the most part, it no longer confuses and terrifies me. I found my way to namsan, the mountain in the middle of the city. I was going to go to the folk village at the entrance to the park, but when I got there it didn't look as appealing as I'd hoped...I looked at the signs, saw that I could climb up to seoul tower, and decided to just start that hike instead. there were very few people on the trail. there is a cable car that goes up to the tower, and I guess a lot of people take that. also, as I discovered when I got to the top, there is another, seemingly more popular trail. but I like the quiet of hiking alone, and I was alone a lot of the way up. it was really really hot, and I hadn't planned ahead as far as bringing water with me, so I was very sweaty and dehydrated by the end, but it was a fairly short hike and I bought water from a little store as soon as I reached the top. I considered actually going up into the tower in the observation elevator, but decided against it. I've been in plenty of those things, and I could just go to the lookout decks for free. I went up the "roof top observation deck," and immediately became fascinated by the fact that there is wirefence surrounding it upon which people customarily place locks decorated with dates, initials, etc. it was just the sort of touristy thing that grosses me out, but I had my camera with me and the locks, with the city hundreds of feet below in the background, made for some sweet, arty- looking photos. I gung around for about twenty minutes playing with my camera and enjoying the view. then I happened upon some sort of ceremony at the reconstructed traditional smoke-signal station nearby. after that, I climbed down the other trail, with heavier traffic. the crowds weren't bad though, and there were some gorgeous views and photo-taking opportunities.

when I got to the bottom of the mountain, I sat under the trees and wrote for a bit before heading off to find the outdoor botanic gardens. I walked for about an hour...it was an awesome walk, I was walking around the city but slightly above it, like seoul was in a huge bowl and I was walking along the rim. the gardens themselves, at least what I saw of them, weren't spectacular, but they were beautiful. I can best describe it as a walk along a prettily wooded, though overly manicured trail. a woman saw me messing with my camera and offered to take a photo of me...these are the sort of small kindnesses that you really appreciate when travelling alone, the things I hope to be mindful of when I come upon lone travellers in the future. at that point, it was getting late and if I wanted to make it to the museum I needed to go immediately.

when I got there, it was about an hour and a half before closing, and the woman at the desk informed me that it was free-admission time. this meant that I had officially done all of the things I planned to do in seoul without spending any money, except for buying a coffee, a muffin and water. there were lots of awesome paintings and installations, including a video installation (called 20th century boy) of an ipod, a cell-phone and, and some hand-held video game device being sandblasted. the film ran backwards, so the little particles of plastic seemed to be coming together...it was pretty sweet. also there was 20 minute documentary called "the white house in my country," where the artist interviewed the proprietors of businesses in korea called "the white house" and "the blue house." "the blue house" ("cheongwadae" in korean) is the name of the president's residence in korea. so the filmmaker went to places like "the white house" restaurant and "the blue house" noraebang, asking the proprietors why they chose the names, asking customers what they thought of the names and if they affected their decision to come in, and asking everyone what they knew about the white house in america, what city it was in (a lot of people said new york), what it looked like, etc. the film was in korean with english subtitles, and it was extremely interesting to watch it as an american in korea.
I saw many many paintings, a lot of which I remember individually, but I won't go on about art too much.
after the museum, I walked around a bit, and then headed back to the area around seoul station. since I may well never be in seoul again, I spent some time just sitting on the steps, taking in the city as a whole, its rhythm, its sounds, its smells, all the huge building and the neon lights.
then I bought a ticket back to daegu and enjoyed the relaxing ride, getting back in time to catch the subway home before it shut down for the night.

that day was wonderful. the next day was weird. but right now I am tired of being in the pc bang and I have to pee, so I'll save that story for later.

I've a couple of funny and interesting stories to report, but for the moment, we take a break from our regularly scheduled programming to acknowledge this day, may 8th.

it is the 1 year anniversary of the death of my friend, jack young, jr., as well as his birthday.

I miss you, captain. I miss the times we sat in your room, filling cups with cigarette butts and drinking wine, you painting and me writing, you filling the stereo with bands I was "lame" for never having heard. the thanksgiving we watched garden state and love actually and a scrubs marathon and ordered pizza. I miss the time we swung on the swings in the playground by your apartment, and I miss your jerky text messages. I miss the times (few though they may have been) when the whole lot of us reveled in each others' company, without the drama. you and I got it right a lot, the friendship thing, and I miss you, and I'm sorry about all the times we got it wrong, and I forgive you, too. and as I said on your myspace, I hope there's a killer party going on wherever you are, and that you're still rockin' like the legend you are.

everyone who reads this, please keep jack's family and friends in your thoughts and prayers today.

I can't get over how it smells outside. spring has a very distinct smell here, much like the smell it has on our stretch of eastern parkway in brooklyn, which leads me to believe that whatever those flowers are that give off said smell are here also. it has been downright hot the past few days, but the perfect kind of hot, breezy and neither too humid nor too dry.

as much as I truly do want to roll my eyes at jonathan safran foer, I can't help but enjoy extremely loud and incredibly close nearly as much as I enjoyed everything is illuminated. against my will, I suppose I'm a fan. I take it as a good sign when I have to keep a journal and pen next to me while reading a book, and put the book down every few pages because it's triggered something I need to write down.

I may have discovered they key (for me, anyway) to moderation. before, I had a hard time curbing my drinking and smoking and junk food eating because I focused on the deprivation aspect. I was policing myself, trying to train myself to hate the consumption. it never worked. I immediately turned into a stubborn child, wanting whatever it was that I was forbidding myself to have. somehow, recently, I have stumbled upon the tactic of learning to love the absence of something in my system, rather than hating its presence. I am never going to dislike being drunk, but I can (and do) love the sharper awareness and abundance of energy that come from not being hungover. I don't hate cigarettes, but I love being able to jog for twenty minutes and not be out of breath. I don't hate ice cream or french fries, but I love how clean my body feels when I eat whole grains and raw vegetables and drink water. when the focus is on having something (the good feelings) rather than depriving yourself of something, it becomes easy to moderate. when you drink less or smoke less or eat less, you are doing so in order to get the good feelings. if I didn't have to go to work right now, I could explain it all more clearly. it isn't some huge epiphany, and it doesn't mean I'll never gain five pounds or have a hangover again, but these small shifts in thinking do make a difference, even if its a subtle one.

I have twenty days left in korea.

so, last weekend, jeju island:



I arrived saturday night and met michelle (who'd been there since thursday) at the bus stop near our hostel. from all the hype about jeju, I was expecting something tropical...lots of swimming and sun and humidity. a tropical paradise it was definitely not, but my one full day there (sunday) still kicked a good deal of tail.



our plan was to hike the eorimok trail, from which, at its highest point, you can get a good view of hallasan, an extinct volcano. at 4.7 km, we figured it wouldn't take the whole day, especially if we hiked down back down the shorter yeongsil trail.



it took awhile to reach the trail's starting point. we had to transfer buses, and had an hour to kill in between them, so we walked around the neighborhood near the bus stop, looking for a convenience store to buy water and snacks for the hike. jeju is famous for its oranges, which grow on trees all over the roadside but for which people pay exorbitant prices in supermarkets. I suppose this is because either a) it is illegal to pick oranges from the wild trees or b) the quality of the fruit from the wild trees is lower than that of those grown for selling. either way though, as soon as I spotted my first orange tree I had an intense desire to pick an orange. so when, on our search for the convenience store, we came upon several untended orange trees, I quickly picked one and gleefully absconded with it. that was a week ago, and I still have it. it's pretty hard and, I assume, not delicious. but the point is, I got it.



after my orange thievery, we found a convenience store and then got on the bus to the trail. the hike up took about four hours, including several short rests. it was an awesome trail. the beginning was all stone steps through the woods. then, farther up, the woods gave way to flat fields, so that we could see all of the surrounding mountains. we kept seeing signs describing all of the mountain's alleged flora, but apparently, in mid april, spring had not yet visited jeju island. almost all of the plants we could see appeared dead, and near the top of the trail we found several large patches of dirty, icy snow. I know it doesn't sound beautiful, but it was. we hopped the rails and went off trail to play on the snow and the rocks. once or twice I ended up leg-deep in the snow, but it wasn't disastrous.

when we got to trail's summit, we only had a few minutes to rest before we had to start back down. we spoke with a few other hikers, including a nice american guy from whom we got a very peaceful, positive vibe. we started off before he did, but we ran into him again on the trail down, and we ended up hiking down together. we learned that his name was sasha, he was from new mexico/ chicago, he was an english teacher on the island, and he had ridden his motorcycle to the mountain.

when we reached the bottom (it took over an hour), we realized that we only had twenty minutes to make it in time for the last bus, and that wasn't going to happen since we still had a long walk down the road to the bus stop. sasha graciously offered to shuttle us one by one back to town on his motorcycle, and after a bit of hesitation at first on michelle's part, we agreed that this was the best option. I was keen on having some quiet time, so I let michelle go first and I waited for 45 minutes at an intersection, sitting by the side of the road enjoying the birdsong.

a lot of people in passing cars honked and gestured to ask if I needed a ride. as it was beginning to get dark, sasha came back, and I hopped on the back of the motorcycle for what turned out to be an awesome ride down the tree-lined road back to seogwipo. he'd left michelle 9so he thought) in a coffee shop just next to the road, but when we walked up the stairs to find her, we discovered that the coffee shop, and the entire plaza (which included a hooters restaurant) was abandoned and even gutted. the next hour involved lots of short rides on the bike, about ten minutes listening to a russian violin/piano duet in the basement of the obscenely luxurious lotte hotel (where we clearly belonged, all sweaty and in our hiking clothes), and several calls from the lobby payphone to michelle's cell. she finally answered after the third or fourth try, and said she'd been waiting in front of the teddy bear museum (ten feet across the street from where we'd first parked) the whole time. I still don't quite believe that, but we went back to retrieve her and she was indeed there. we insisted that sasha let us take him to dinner, and we had a long meal full of great conversation and many laughs. then we parted ways, and michelle and I went back to the hostel for a few hours of sleep before we had to get up and take a bus to the airport the next morning.

augh, I came here specifically to catch up on posting, and then spent a bunch of time gimbaping around on the internet ('gimbaping around' is a verb phrase that I invented a few days ago. this it's first venture outside of my head. 'gimbap' is korean sushi, and the phrase amuses me. do with it what you will.) so that now I have very little time to post. anyway, after the trip to busan, t, m and I had galbi (korean barbecue, where you cook strips of meat on tabletop grill) with an interesting character who may at some point be written up in this blog. for now, I'll move on to sunday.


michelle and I took the train to gyeongju (not to be confused with gwangju, where we originally thought we were planning to go-luckily we made the distinction before buying the train tickets). the train ride was gorgeous and mountainous, and reminded us both of the english countryside. we were planning to rent bikes when we got to gyeongju, having read that this was the best way to see the town since the attractions were too close together for buses to be worthwhile but too far apart to walk. I was having anxiety about the bike thing, because I haven't actually ridden one in at least fifteen years. so I was initially relieved when we got to the gyeongju train station and the the woman at the tourist info booth, who spoke very clear english, told us that it would be too difficult to bike to bulguksa temple (our first destination). "it's a long way, and all uphill," she said. she advised us to take the bus. we waited about a half hour for the bus, and when it arrived, it was already packed at least as tight as the m60 from laguardia at rush hour. we were among the last three people to be allowed onto the bus, and spent about an hour with this man smashed in between us. I was balancing with one foot on a step and one foot off, holding onto two poles and shifting my weight intermittently, twisting my torso so that it wouldn't go numb. the bus was barely moving, due to some of the worst traffic I've ever seen. meanwhile, I was looking out the window at the sidewalks, lined with blossoming cherry trees, where people were strolling happily, and bikes were zooming past us. my anxiety about biking gave way to intense jealousy of the speed and freedom afforded the cyclers while I was being breathed upon by a strange old man who may or may not have been peeking down my shirt. "let's get off at the next stop," I said to michelle. she was skeptical, since we weren't actually sure where the temple was. I didn't care, all I wanted was to be off the bus and moving. so we got off and began walking. I was confident that the droves of people must all be heading towards the temple, but I was also just happy that we were using our legs and going somewhere. the cherry blossoms were gorgeous, the road sloped gently and subtly uphill, and people were constantly pointing at us and saying "hi." We kept going for about two hours, stopping once to confirm with a young policeman that we were heading in the right direction. we came to a huge lake, where a slightly ridiculous boat shaped like a swan passed us by. the landscape was gorgeous- we were at the foot of a mountain- but we still hadn't seen any signs or obvious trails for the temple. at this point it was 4:45, and the temple closed at 5, so we were no longer counting on getting there. we sat down by the lake to rest and take in the scenery. the side of the lake where we were sitting was completely natural, all trees and mountains and rock, aside from the paved road and sidewalk. across the lake, however, was a very ugly, industrial looking amusement park, sticking out among the mountains like a mutated cockroach among butterflies. it was actually kind of fascinating. we sat for about thirty minutes before continuing along the road. we passed a father with a tiny little boy on his shoulders, and he coaxed his son to greet us, whereupon the son said "how are you?" in perfect english, and we replied. it never ceases to impress me that so many young children here, and people in general, are bilingual, often tri-lingual, although I'm learning that in many countries that's the norm.

at this point I was beginning to feel bad because I thought we must have missed the turnoff for the temple. traffic had dissipated, and I wondered if maybe I'd made a bad judgment call, if staying on the bus would have been the wiser decision after all. it wasn't until we walked for another 30 minutes or so, through another traffic jam, and came to a sign telling us that bulguksa temple was another 4 km ahead, that I realized we would never have made it in time on the bus either, what with the traffic. I was glad we'd gotten off the bus, because at least we had a nice long walk through some gorgeous terrain. we gave up on reaching the temple at all, and climbed on a bus back towards downtown gyeongju. we were again stuck on the bus for over an hour, but at least this time we had seats. we reached the train station and discovered that the next train back to daegu was full, so we would have to wait until 10pm to go home. it was only about 7, so we decided to explore gyeongju's downtown shopping district, which we found to be exactly like daegu's, only smaller. we found a little gimbap place to eat dinner. these places are cheap and quick, like fast food only healthier. in addition to gimbap they serve lots of differents soups, noodles, bibimbap, and other things. the whole time that michelle was here I enjoyed using my ability to read korean. of course it's only helpful when I know what word I'm looking for, and my korean vocabulary is extremely limited, but it definitely comes in handy when reading menus. we ordered and ate, and then it was about time to go back to the train station. the ride home was nice and relaxing. the train smelled a bit, but it was much quieter than the faster and more expensive KTX which we had ridden to and from seoul and busan.



that was sunday. during the next week, while I was working, michelle had some adventures of her own in jinhae, and went back to seoul and busan for day trips. on thursday she flew to jeju island, where I joined her on saturday. I'll write about that in my next entry.