Back from Seoul. It was intense. I’m starting to get over uncompromising jet lag after taking two 14.5 hour, International date line-crossing flights inside five days. That meant I had only four days on the ground in Seoul to do a lot of preparation for moving there. I interviewed five candidates to be my translator/assistant, visited three preschools and saw 16, yes 16 different houses and apartments in Seoul. By the last day of house-hunting I really wanted to just pick something or throw in the towel.
A few observations:
Really going to like the heated seats on the Subway, which is also the cleanest subway system I’ve ever encountered. Don’t even get me started on how polite everyone is compared to the subhuman experiences in Shanghai, Beijing and being flabbergasted by the people who play their music without headphones on the DC Metro.
I have never seen so many post-op women just out and about in the city. I knew South Korea was some sort of cosmetic surgery capital but I didn’t expect to see it so obviously. It seemed like I couldn’t turn my head without seeing a gal with one of those skin-colored silicone nose covers protecting her face after a nose job. I told Matty about it and he says this is exactly what happens in the near-future predicted in The Hunger Games.
My mom met me in Seoul and while she had her own friend to hang out with while I did my work-related stuff, she did go on some of the househunting trips with me and we got to hang out together, just the two of us, which we hadn’t done in awhile. It made me really want to spend more time with my momma. I find a lot of the transitions coming up quite unnerving, but my mom makes me feel like I can handle anything.
And finally…
Someone I read a lot — Sean Bonner — recently wrote about how he missed his “old way” of blogging, in which he just spewed out whatever was on his mind into a post. We all tend to write about a single idea in each post now, which makes a lot of sense for a lot of reasons, but maybe not for personal blogging. I miss the stream of consciousness blogging, too. I was reading my old blogger blog from my early twenties and remembered how much I enjoyed just writing whatever silliness was on my mind, without any particular connecting themes or organization.
Anyway that’s neither here nor there. Which is sort of my point in sharing it. I think I’m returning to posts devoid of any central points. Some more photos, below.
