2003-08-21 - 11:44 p.m.

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Cho brought back my bedding from the trip he and Ed went on. I'm sitting on the Fukuoka Blanket again! Ah, luxury.

I hustled off to the kiddies early this morning so I could get their paper run off on the copier. Good plan, but the darn machine didn't cooperate. One of the Corean teachers came in and got it going just in time for me to get to my class with one of the papers, anyway. Layout for the rest of the book is scheduled for this weekend. We've made it to R so far. The rest will be easy; it's just time-consuming.

I waited a little while after class and Cho came to eat lunch with me. It's a lot more fun to have someone to converse with while eating. Then we went over to the bank for me to finally put in the money Peter P paid me on the 4th of August for the work I did for him in July.

I'd told Cho about my low-tech roach trap, so we stopped at a coffee shop for iced latte in dome-topped plastic glasses. (The bugs go in and can't get out.) We drank the latte, as all the bugs need is a whiff of sweetness for bait. I settled in with a fresh newspaper while he headed for the law library to put in a couple hours of study.

When Cho got back, he called me on the cellphone. As I settled into the car, he asked if I minded waiting a minute while he ran across to the "Chunwon" store to get a flashlight. I didn't mind as he had the latest Grapevine on the dashboard. I got so absorbed that it seemed like no time before he scampered back. He grabbed some cash to get a couple other great bargains and returned quickly with a metal roll-up measuring tape and a lint brush, for only 84 U.S. cents each! He was keen to show me all the "great stuff" over there, but I declined (not needing anything). He laughed and said, "That's how you get richer,"- a running joke with us, as he knows just how poor I've been. There was a stretch last winter when he was fronting me the rent and grocery money. A very good friend, indeed!

We had to hustle across town so he could pay the rent for our meeting room at the U.S.O. (The manager leaves at 6 p.m.)

I can't get over what a good little car he has. He got it for less than $400 U.S. and it runs like a Swiss watch. It's a hatchback and can carry 5 passengers, but is maybe half the length of a Subaru Outback. It's got a wonderfully tight turning radius, gets "motorcycle gas mileage"(32 km/liter) and only costs half-price in any parking garage because it's so tiny.

After the meeting, I showed him how to get to the great bulgogi restaurant I found back in December of 2001. He was delighted with the food, the prices and the service. They use beef broth rather than water when stewing the thinly sliced flank steak, and use just enough black pepper to make it, so it sits up and says "Howdy" but doesn't overwhelm.

Then he took me up past the great fountain by Gyunghwamun, and by Dongdaemun Gate,- showing me the old parts of Seoul that escaped destruction in 1950. Somehow his "shortcut" got turned around and we made an illegal U-turn. Of course a cop happened to see. The policeman was on foot, but he blew his whistle and Cho pulled over beside him. He looked at Cho's licence, punched the licence number into his cellphone and got a computer readout that said Cho was okay, so he just gave him a brief lecture and let us go. It was all very civilised from start to finish. The cop even gave Cho directions on the best way to get to my place in Anam. I felt like I was in a time warp. That's the way policemen used to act 40 years ago in the U.S.

Another example of good manners here: There's a shortage of parking in Seoul and people park on sidewalks and wherever they can squeeze a car in. They display their cellphone numbers on the dashboard, so, if their car is blocking anyone else, the other person can ring them up to move their car. I've even seen little pillows on dashboards with the phone numbers embroidered on them. Tsatsakes, to be sure, but eyecatching, so they do the job graciously.

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Aug. 21, [3 a.m.] - I just took my pre-bedtime shower and checked the outdoor thermometer while grabbing a cup of yoghurt from the fridge on the porch. It's 27 degrees Centigrade (81 F), about as low as it's going to get tonight. It's very humid because it rained all last night and most of the morning.

When I came home last night, the water was pouring off the house roof and running nearly 3 inches / 8 centimetres deep in the middle of the (concave) path to my gate. It was rushing so fast that the "bow-wave" came over the toes of my Corean platform sandals and soaked my socks. [Those sandals have thick rubber soles that add almost 4 inches to my height.]

Thanks for reading.

Happy Trails!

~ Sil in Corea

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