This past weekend was both a hit and miss. I ended up stuck in the apartment all day Saturday. For the first few hours it was nice. I slept in until 9:30 (and believe me, it was glorious!), drank three cups of instant gold mocha (Koreans love the instant coffee. It’s growing on me, though nothing will replace a good cup of freshly brewed Dunkins with cream and sugar. Ooh, my mouth is watering just thinking of it.), checked my internet stuff, wrote a short story and knitted. By three or four in the afternoon I was antsy, but I couldn’t leave because the cable guy was supposed to be here at an unspecified time and David was away for the day. By seven I relented and went downstairs for a few minutes to get teriyaki chicken on a stick. I was quite upset that my entire free Saturday was spent stuck in an apartment. I’m so much more aware of free time now that I have so little of it. Every moment away from the school is precious! The one good thing that came out of Saturday was that the short story I wrote (a flash fiction horror story centered around fire imagery) got accepted into an anthology called “Elements of Horror” so I get to see my name in print again! It’s a small project, but even small steps take you places right?
On Sunday we decided to go to church. We picked a church called “Jubilee” which is in the Southern part of central Seoul, right by the city’s financial district. It took us over two hours to get there via the subway. We left our apartment at 11:30 and reached the church at 1:35. It was so great to be in a fellowship of believers after such a long two weeks! Much of the congregation was young Americans who had come over to teach English. We met some really great people, even a few from Charleston!
After church and a lunch of fried chicken (which Korean adore for some reason…) we went to see Bongeunsa Temple. It was very large and filled with the smell of incense. A huge Buddha statue towered on a hill above the city and dozens of Koreans knelt down before it. The priests beat the drums and the giant gong. It was a very strange experience just after attending a great, fulfilling church service.
We got home at 8:30, our day consumed with the traveling (4 hours on the trains total!) and church (a 2 hour service!). It wasn’t a bad day, but it was sad to see the weekend used so inefficiently.
I’ve been sick this week. It started with a scratchy throat on the train back on Sunday and turned into a searing pain later that night. I’ve still gone to school and made it this far through the week, so hopefully the illness will be on the downslide (especially since we’re going on a trip to the DMZ this weekend!). The lesson I learned? Wash my hands compulsively because I work with germy children! Bleck!
My first serious homesickness hit Saturday night. It was a crying night for sure. I’ve only been gone 3 weeks, but it seems like so much longer. In another 3+ weeks I’ll have been gone from Charleston the longest I’ve ever been away… which seems very odd, but it’s true.
Okay, I’ll stop rambling now and post this thing.
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