Seoul Times

Mom's visit and the New Year

2012-01-25T17:48:00.000-08:00

It hasn't been a month and I'm already falling behind on keeping up with posting new entries.

It just came back from short weekend trip where we went snowboarding and ice fishing. The former was delightful. The latter involved a lot of people, and very little fish. Not matter though, because we ended up buying a trout to BBQ instead. I suppose that's how we celebrated the New Year, since S's parents were away. It was quiet and cozy, but I can't help but miss home and family during the holidays.

My mom was here in Seoul for a few days just before the holidays. There's no doubt we get on each other's nerve (or at least she gets on mine), but it is nice to have someone to have a heart to heart with.

Otherwise I admit I haven't been doing much these days, but just as well. Mostly, I read, write, cook and run. I actually have no complaints about this lifestyle, and it suits my personality quite fine. It's given me a lot of time to think and to be. Plus, I'm shamelessly loving the novelty of domestic life, where the it feels like a luxury to be able to fret over what to have for dinner or fold two people's worth of laundry.

I need to start posting pictures of what I'm making in the kitchen.

2012-01-09T03:52:00.000-08:00

Being bed-ridden for the majority of the past week made for a pretty unexciting few days, consisting of too much Korean t.v. and force feeding myself. When things finally started getting better, I started to wander around Seoul, meeting Craiglisters at various subway stations after scavenging the site in search for secondhand things to embellish our apartment with. The most exciting buy was a Korean style floor mattress, which is now set up in the loft. I also got some textiles at Dongdaemun market, where I managed to make my way through the labyrinth of vendors to buy 3 yards of fabric. Those were later turned into quasi-curtains for the skylight, with some tensions rods found at LotteMart, by the tailor next door. Thus far, I'm pretty impressed by how much can be done here with a few words of Korean, a lot of hand movement and nodding.

Other highlights of the week include hiking on Gwanaksan. The place was crowded by over-equipped ajumas and ajushis, but it was fun nevertheless to get some fresh air, and engage my legs in physical activity.

I've also been learning how to cook in my tiny kitchen, which consists of 1 foot square of counter space and a tiny burner. So far, I've made chicken soup, french toast, pokumpap (fried rice), naan and indian curry and some stir fried nian gao (rice cake). I will start taking some pictures and post them here. SH's mom has been packing us a lot of frozen marinated meats and soups for us, which is so lovely it is beyond my own comprehension of what it means to be a mother.

Moving X 2

2012-01-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

It's my second week in Seoul, and I'm finally starting to feel like I'm settling in after a bit of a rough start. Prior to coming here, I was naive enough to let SH choose the apartment we were to live in together. I should have been suspicious when he signed as lease on the very first place he visited. I hate to live by stereotypes, but this catastrophe has led me to conclude that men are not to be trusted with these kinds of decisions. Or at least, SH is not to be trusted.

So the search began immediately for a second place to live. Thankfully, his darling mom helped us find a much more comfortable apartment right by Yonsei, and we resettled over the weekend. The conditions of the first place, coupled with the stress of finding another, got me sicker than I've been in a long while, so I've been staying indoors for the past couple of days, which is really no way of adapting to a new city. After making a pot of Yi Po Po's signature chicken soup and taking some mysterious medicine last night, I found myself well enough today to wander to a nearby cafe where I am writing up this post now. After paying for my overpriced hot chocolate, I've decided that I ought to document my time in Seoul and give a jab at writing about domesticity, learning Korean and life in Seoul. So far, I've been overwhelmed by utter shock at how different and difficult it is to live here. Things that I thought were amusing during my prior visits have become daily struggles that are no longer so charming, like trying to buy a curtain rod. And while I want to get over my shyness in practicing the language, it seems like it still gets the best of me.

Also, until now, my meetings with SH was a bit unsustainably fairytale-ish. We visited each other in different cities around the world, spent a few glorious days in one another's company in a beach resort in Hong Kong, a custom-made boat in London, or a dreamy apartment in San Francisco. We indulged in restaurants, theatre shows, and taxi rides because we thought we owed ourselves all those pleasures we missed out on when we were apart. My stay here in Seoul brings an end to the long-distance we endured for a year and a half, an end that also takes our relationship back to certain sense reality. It's going to be fun to get to know him within the perimeter of our tiny Seoul apartment. So far, so good (minus the housing hiccup).

These will be the inspiration for this blog. I'm not very good at keeping up with writing commitments, but since I don't have much else to do until school starts in February, I might give this a shot.