By the way and a day in Seoul

By the way, Saturday afternoon is probably not the best time to get some quiet blogging done. It is when all the middle and high school students are in the PC room, playing very loud games. I'm not sure what the game was, but it invloved lots of explosions. When I left to go home it was raining. I got wet. As soon as I got home, I took a warm shower and felt much better. I did a load of wash, hung it up, and tried to watch some game show on TV. I figured out how to turn it on, but I only get one channel, and it is in Korean. I gave up after about 10 minutes, then laid down, but only for a minute. I woke up again at 1am. I didn't want to mess up my sleep clock too much, so I drank some milk, read a bit and went back to sleep.

When I woke up I felt pretty good. My clothes were semi-dry but they were clean. I took a walk again by the riverside. The rain always softens things. The hibiscus are in bloom now; red, pink, white, and purple flowers bigger than my hand. The flopsy yellow flowers survived, and a few more yellow flowers decided to open up. It was a nice walk. I think that on Monday I'll start doing some of the exercise stations along the walkway.

After my walk, I got dressed and found the bus to Seoul station. There I met up with Kristin, my neighbor from KC. She had been homesick, but now is ok. We went to Kyobo bookstore, and I found a book for Mr. Lee (the school's owner)-- we then went to the stationary section. Korea has to be the cute paper/card/sticker capital of the universe. I found a great accordion folder- you know the kind that are always brown and ugly back in the States- with tons of bright blue flowers, and another one with geisha girls serving tea. Kristin found stickers that were pictures of vintage fabric swatches. There was so much it was almost overwhelming. I also found some room stickers that I think I'll have to use for my apartment. They are like the stickers you get at the stationary store only much much much larger. (think big enough to put on a wall) I decided my entrance way needs a garden, and the stickers of poppies and hibiscus are perfect.

We went for coffee after shopping. Although we didn't do that much, it was still really nice to visit and watch all the people go by. One guy had neon lime green tennis shoes. I decided that I loved those shoes. All kinds of people passed by our sidewalk table. The young, the old, the fashionable, the crazy, the worried, the lovers. Sometimes I think if you sit long enough in an outdoor cafe, the whole world will pass by on the sidewalk.
And so it goes.