January 12, 2003
Last Day in Korea

We're leaving for the airport in about 90 minutes. I was saying to Al last night that I'm torn between wanting to go home, where it's easier to communicate and the streets aren't as greasy, and wanting to stay here to continue my education in the customs and language of Koreans. I think that that's an indication that the length of this, my first visit, was just right. Next time maybe we'll stay longer.

Peter and Maggie (Katelyn) called early this morning to say that they wanted to drop off a gift with us, and though the call woke us, we weren't sad. We'd wanted to get up early so we could walk around some more. We finally made it out at around 8:30am and headed for the Starbucks; we weren't surprised when they said they didn't have soy milk, but we were positively floored when they said they had no decaf. I couldn't stop repeating it has we walked away: No decaf? No decaf?!? Are you serious? I guess it was a sign that we weren't supposed to be wasting time at Starbucks in Seoul.

Since we were out already and we hadn't gotten to see inside the palace (Deoksugung) near City Hall last night, we walked over there to see if it was open. It wasn't; the opening time is 9am, but it's closed all day on Mondays. :( I started to turn for the subway entrance that we'd come out of when Al said, "don't you want to do a loop?" :)

We stopped in an LG25 for batteries, and Al clarified about why he'd laughed about "the joy of the loop" last night: He likes it that I give names to things like that. "It's like when you say, 'WHEEEEE!' when you're crossing four lanes of traffic at once and then declare, 'that's the sound for crossing four lanes of traffic' or when you looked at the service guide in the Korean Air inflight magazine and announced, 'ooh, in hour four we get presents!'" [The symbol for duty-free sales was a gift box, but I kept referring to it as "Presents!"] Makes me feel loved to know that he finds my quirks amusing.

Posted by Lori at January 12, 2003 06:16 PM