Saturday March 28th, 2009 Seoul Korea

Today: Saturday, March 28. Clear and Sunny. 55 degrees.

6:30am: Was suppose to get up early and take an overnight trip with Jes to the coast but felt like shit. Sinus infection started at my upper lip and wrapped around the sagittal crest. Nose very swollen--looked like a like a native indian, or like that Neanderthal from the Gecko insurance commercials. Apologized to Jes and went back to sleep.

8:30am: Made a pot of coffee from a drip maker Jes recently retrieved from a friend whose been storing it for her for a couple years. Coffee is very dear here--about $40/pound for subprime beans. Coffee is served everywhere in Seoul. However, water with brown food-coloring at $4 a Grande is as bad a purchase as a condo in Las Vegas in 2005. I fold and cut my own filters from paper towels. I have yet to find anyone vending #2 cones.

9:00am: Settled back into bed and dove into Cloud Atlas by Robert Mitchell.

11:00am: Ate half of a left over pizza and another pot of coffee. Still in Cloud Atlas.

12:30pm: Jes came home with groceries and a new domestic product--a folding drying rack. It allows us to dry our laundry in a consolidated space rather than hanging and draping our stuff over every available surface in our apartment. Drying machines are only for the rich.

4:00pm: Put down my book. Jes served us homemade traditional BLT's, fresh strawberries and Fanta for a late afternoon lunch. It was hands down the best meal I've had in Korea, and definitely one of Jes' top three specialties (to the best of my knowledge Jes' cooking repertoire consists of five items.)

5:30pm: Watched Sprout on my laptop. Made a mental note to look up Ceylon as a possible surf destination. Listened to a Jack Shimabukuro album I downloaded yesterday and tried to work out a couple Beatle tunes on my ukulele. Need a tuning fork.

8:15pm: Sinuses are feeling much better; my nose is back to a more agreeable size. I might even go outside tomorrow.

10:00pm: Feeling restless after a day indoors, Jes and I opted to go for a walk in our neighborhood. Our apartment is 2 blocks from a subway stop. Our neighborhood is divided by an overpass. The north side of the pass is populated with more wanna-be western establishments--it feels like Stonestown. The south side of the over pass is more traditional and is more like Irving St., By Seoul standards we live in a suburb. After an hour of exploring, we settled on a traditional Korean restuarant (there are hundreds around us and its sooo difficult to choose one) and had a a really nice meal...Jes taught me how how to order food speaking Korean!!! 'Yo gi Yo! Twogay Tedchi Gowbi Geyeso' - "Over here waiter! Two BBQ pork dinners for us." "Comsadeenya" - "Thank you!"