100, and getting senile

My public is getting antsy because I haven't written in a while. Actually, it HAS been longer than I thought--a number of factors account for it.

This is my 100th blog. I feel like it should be a Good One, but nothing Good is springing forth. There's the one on names I've been meaning to write for 2 months now. The one about the subway that's been marinating even longer. It almost became an entry on why I miss my car, because that was top of mind a couple times last week. But I never got the focus and the drive to pick up the computer and write, at least not at any time where that was an option.

I've been writing a lot in other venues, too. Finally started the blog for kids I've been thinking of since before I left (find it at www.auntlissatravels.blogspot.com). "I want to travel with kids" keeps ringing through my head, and until I can literally do that, virtual will have to suffice. When I get home, I'll need to put some serious effort into the after school program idea that turned up a couple years ago and has steadfastly refused to leave. I do think it's my life's work, and it's time to get going.

These thoughts have also caused a profusion of journaling (not to mention converting this blog from a travelogue to navel-gazing rambles). While I like Korea, I can't honestly say I'm enjoying this, but it is having the desired effect of giving me a good shake. To date, this year gives every appearance of being the watershed I expected, and a ton of my energy is being consumed by sitting on the couch. Really. There's so much to think about and sift through, it's all I want to do.

I'm also reading two very thought-provoking travel books: Blue Highways, and Traveling with Pomegranates. The first, a classic by an amazing writer, making me want to mark passages just for their artistry. The second is a mother and daughter journey chronicle, and I'm unable to get through a whole chapter without reaching for my journal. Lots to think about. Not much to talk about. Unless you've got a while.

I thought I'd made it past the "three-month hump". I'd figured it would be somewhere around Thanksgiving, and when the magic 3-month mark came and went, I concocted a theory about having been away for more than 3 months already, so it actually should have happened in August, but that was when I came here, so that changed things, and maybe the doldrums of early October were all I'd get, blah, blah, blah. Right. I'm not at 4 months yet, and settling embers of homesickness have ignited again. Online chat has been a godsend, but at the same time it makes me tear my hair out; and likewise, the gift that is Skype is also frustratingly inadequate. I want actual face-to-face, sights, smells, non-verbal cues, the whole thing. I want to be & do with people, spend time in someone's company without talking, just have it be normal for a little bit. Time both flies and drags. It is still 9 long weeks before I visit home; 9 unbelievably long months before I get to stay there.

Despite my insatiable appetite for "cave time", I have been forcing myself out. Just spent the weekend in Gongju--full report to come; getting out of Seoul never seems to lose its lustre. Went downtown a couple times last week. It's all glitzed out for Christmas, and is quite cheery. Nothing can quite replace that red triangle in the building windows, but it does compensate nicely. Got to see what a Korean field trip looks like on Friday--everyone wandering to a museum within an hour or so of the appointed time, wandering around for a couple hours more, then calling it a day. One of the teachers didn't even make the kids stay with her, and I was specifically told not to. The last few months' context has made the exhibits much more interesting to me, but I was unable to enjoy the Korean War section thanks to a hustler who followed me like a lost dog, reading the placards and expounding at length (but not in depth). As soon as he pulled out a laser pointer, I knew--one of these people who hangs around tourist sights and acts the friendly local, then hits you up for money when it's too late to say no. I've read about it in other countries; I guess it happens here, too. Here are 2 random facts I did glean: The spikes on the "back" of Korean turtle boats were to thwart the Japanese navy, whose specialty was ship invasions. When they jumped on Korean boats, they got impaled....and....the "Korean War" is obviously not an appellation that means much here. It's their civil war, known as "6/25" (just like we say 9/11), the date in 1950 when Northern armies stormed into Seoul.

Reconstituted some refried beans for dinner tonight. They make me think of Grand Teton, where I made them with water heated in my JetBoil, and ate them on a log at the shores of Jackson Lake, enjoying a stunning sunset and watching a picnicking family nearby. I think wistfully of it because it was there and not here, but also feel an aversion to it as the time Before, when all of this was still to come.