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I feel so disconnected and disengaged from those I love at home. It's kind of like a mission, I suppose. You carry those people with you always, but you miss their presence and the streams of warm, full-body communication. Besides, to live and love here, and to invest myself in the present setting, season, and people takes a lot--requires most of me. I want to spend hours every day writing these experiences, but these smokey PC rooms betrayed my lungs and sinuses long ago. A train ride home from Seoul today caught me watching the world with wide, wondering, consuming eyes. I'm still that 9-year-old in Vienna, fascinated by the wide world and hardly aware anymore of my little space in it. When I travel, I become just my blue eyes, and here I watch their lovely black heads and black eyes and their Asian world. I forced my eyes open to watch the countryside, though we had to get up at 5 to catch the train and Scott was snoozing peacefully beside me. But an hour on a train wouldn't touch what I need to rest, so I decided I'd rather use the time to watch Korean cities and farms and countryside. My body needs sleep of a serious kind, I'm afraid. Like a week of darkness and Enya and horizontal come to mind. Besides, we only had 2 hours in Seoul, so the train ride itself was my reason for getting up in the morning. The countryside had some snow (not too common here) and some beautiful hills and many more concrete, geometric cities of various sizes, with bizarre Vegas-style fortresses and castles boasting spas and restaurants. (I'd much prefer their architecture to look more like their ancients, with pointy tile roofs, and palaces and such. But they like turrets and Disney-type designs for new buildings. Oh well.) In Seoul, I puttered about for a couple hours in a nice part of town boasting giant malls above and below ground and the Korea World Trade Center. I was thrilled to be in Seoul, watching with wonder this GIANT city full of fog and gray and concrete and tall steel. I browsed the malls and actually found real bread (by my standards anyway), with nuts and seeds and whole-grain flour and all. I wanted to get some yogurt and cheese to go with it--European tour mentality surfacing. Instead, I got some seaweed rice rolls and decided that was proof enough that I'm sold on the food here and going to really miss it one day. Admittedly, Korea has neither mangoes nor granola, 2 strikes, so I'd still find reason to import (thank you, mama), but steaming sticky rice every day will not get old for me. Wide Blue Eyes, ck [2003-01-12]
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