Life in Wartime?

A certain surreality pervades Seoul. I'm sitting in my office, as shells are falling on Yeongpyeong Island. Outside my window, students and faculty continue to walk around as though nothing were out of the ordinary. About three kilometers away, Yi Myeong-Bak is in a bunker under the Blue House wondering among other things, if the press reports here are accurate, if they should send a protest letter to the UN (wtf?). The ROK has scrambled bombers and fighters and while Lee says to "avoid escalation" I'm not sure that NK will see the planes as non-escalatory? I'm hoping the angels aren't ready to wear my red shoes. ^^

Me? There are two places I should go to in case of evacuation, but I'm certainly assuming it won't come to that. In fact, I think home is probably safest as, paradoxically, it is close to the US army base and if NK ever went for that things would be fully on, and Seoul would be the threatened "sea of fire" that NK blathers on about from time to time. LOL - and since those locations are listed on the US embassy website, they might make charming and known targets if NK wants to go all in

The news came in first on twitter - oh brave new world that has such things in it - and twitter is blowing up over here. Everyone is chiming in, though it is frequently the same posts being passed around again and again. The Honolulu Times is sending out tweets at an astounding pace, many of which are repeats and many of which are random and illiterate.

On expat Korean blogs things are only beginning to heat up..

the apologists are begining to come in:

I understand that people are hurt, but it’s not worth escalation. A strongly worded message is all they deserve.

And soon we will have the folks who blame this on S. Korea. There is a predictable trajectory (if I may be allowed that word when writing about artillery fire related trauma) to the political goings-on around here.

For now, my office is warm, outside is cool, and there is at least one corpse on Yeonpyeong with shells supposedly still falling.

I think I'll stop by the pub tonight and have a pint or two.