aaah... so after Yvonne left for the Empire in Decline I drank until the weekend and then through it. The place was pretty boring without her and alcohol does consume time, if even at the cost of a few brain cells and more notches back out the belt.

That became pretty damned boring and mornings horrible. So Monday I began going back into work (even though there still wasn't hot water to shower and the electricity was only on in half of the apartment - thank god the half of the electricity with the AC). Work provided me with good entertainment as I had to work on a paper co-written with two other professors about the difficulty of translating allusions from a minor culture to a major one. This took all the way til the last day, the Friday, and the time working on things was good. Still, boring at home, as the weekend reminded me, and I was still trying to get the smell out of the refrigerator from the rotted food (dating back to when we returned from China to find 0 electricity, a nightmare I have skipped right over). I was mopey even though I was busy.

Last week we began another paper, so again there was stuff to do, and when the weather was good I walked in and out of work to try to keep the Vitamin D and endorphins and what not swirling. This was all good til Friday when I got utterly drenched in a sonagi of epic proportions. It blew in, blew up, blew away, and left me a rag. I had all my electronics double wrapped so they were safe, but the clothes weren't. LOL.. I ran from bus stop to bus stop catching them when I could and scurrying to the next stop when I had to. Inconvenient, but rain in 30 degrees is actually refreshing, and it was my pride hurt more than anything else.

It all cleared up so Saturday I could go shopping & take a nice long walk prefaced by a bibimbap breakfast. These were involved, as I walked the Itaewon/Gyeongnidan loop to the cheapest store around and then lay down for 20 minutes that turned into a 2-hour, drooling, snoring sleep. Woke up logy, but had an academic event to go to. Skidded down the hill and had a piece of pizza for dinner (first piece of remotely unhealthy food this week) and got to the place with 10 minutes to spare. Kept circling where it should be according to the map(s) and only kept ending staring at the Finance Center. IM'd the organizer, and I was in the wrong part of town. By now the event was 30 minutes over, and my nap-head had cleared, so I didn't want to go a lecture on the Joseon Dynasty and its architecture. IM'd my regrets and headed for the 405 before remembering in the other direction, the 402 would drop me off just above my house, without need to walk uphill or take the maul bus. Start toward Deoksu Palace, beyond which lay the bus stop.. and thought I heard a burst of electric guitar and bass.

It quickly went away. But when I passed Seoul City Hall/Library I saw a massive setup for a drum show. Not much going on, but I thought I'd wait, the night was nice and people were being cool. Then, early, a high-school rock-band jumped on-stage and began playing an odd bit of the old rock n roll. And I mean *really* old rock n' roll... like this (Note particularly, the old dude at the end who was drumming along - he was mad into it and went spectacular when the drums went solo):


I even stayed as they played "Hold the Line (Love isn't Always on Time). You don't really realize how many "L's" are in that song until you hear a Korean try to sing it.

Quite a few, actually

Still, they were quite palette cleansing as was the next chant/drum bit... but when the drum circle came out I began to have Grateful Dead flashbacks and had to get the hell out of there. The 402 bus came just 2 minutes after I hit the bus stop, and I flew home. Began work on my video for the LTI Korea contest. Super Productive day.

Today downloaded an album that only had one seeder (so I feared disconnecting as the dude hadn't been online for days. Once that concluded went out for coffee and writing, and walked down to the Hangul museum to give it a full look. Pretty nice and I'll be talking about in on www.ktlit.com tomorrow, for anyone interested. Content and lots of glitz for the kiddies. Also went over to the bookstore of the national museum, bo make sure something I'm already certain of, that they wouldn't have any fiction for sale for foreign visitors (something I did see in China, and that caused me to buy a book of Chinese fiction - haven't started reading it or anything^^ but I do have it and will someday read it). Of course, even though the Hangul Museum had an entire floor dedicated to the writing process and a cafeteria/book/Made in China store?  No books.

Again the god of city busses was with me, whisked home, light cleaning, and sorting the photos from the last few days. Turned the fridge back on, and now it smells of bleach not rot (I suppose I'll have to swish that out next week or so), but for the moment can hold vegetables again, which is "A Good Thing I Suppose!"

I think I'm getting into the swing of this bachelor thing. Next big trauma... move to smaller place. At least it can be put off til after Yvonne swings through again and when she leaves I have to repeat the cycle described above.^^