Happy New Year everyone! It's the Year of the Dragon. Let the hidden debauchery prevail and deliciously delicious filled braveries unveil themselves, unfurl themselves upon us and upon those we love as hard as we need.
The first month was hard here. I've never felt more emotions at one time...ever...and I'm pretty dramatic usually...
Had a chance to go out a bit this weekend. Friday we had an afterwork gathering filled with yummy food, beers, beers...and some more vodka...
It turned out great.
Met some cool people and got to know a bit of Bundang.
Yesterday we went to Insadong in Seoul - it`s a market with lots of textiles, food vendors, ceramics and antiques. Bought a hat - it was so goddamn cold and I was dressed for a Parisian spring like the goose I am. We traversed the market freezing and sorta clumsily making our way through delicious smells and freezing cold pockets. Some sunny spots made it easier and we eventually found refuge in an artisan building with arts and crafts stores. The terrace on the top floor was kinda whimsical in a casual way. There was an electric fireplace in the middle with flannel blankies on wooden benches and hot cocoa and cinnamon filled the air. Some planted trees and silly archery activities made it seem like we were sensible 30-year olds spending the afternoon pleasantly with our nuclear family of 2. 5 kids with golden-retriever and all...only we're in Korea..so please feel free to negotiate the standardized differences on highGDP maximized happiness. I won't even dare to make a guess right now. I don't even know where I am half the time.
We wondered through a mall relatively close to home anddddddddddd called it a night. Came home, ate a banana and .zonked.
Toodaaaayyyyyy wasssssssss a break.
I missed England a lot today actually. Went to see the Sherlock Holmes movie with buds and saw some London scenery. Old habits die hard. Older habits never die. Therefore... Some sort of nostalgia kicked in. For a world I understand. Not even a specific place. Just a place that matches the place in my head. But then I thought of London and what London really meant to me. London, I explained once to a friend of mine, is like the whole world on a tinier surface. Like the world imploded....and then there was London. Huge and towering, small and cowering, flowery, dark, smudged in charcoal, bright with the Indian echoes that traversed oceans and seas, grimy with the small greedy hands of the Industrial Revolution. Compartmentalized, cold London. Beautiful brazen suburban London with the Rose and Globe theatres that featured plays and bear fights. Wild, willowy London with its soft churches. Soft, honey melting church spires with ancient pastors and their ancient hands. Celestial London, silly London, punk-rock London. Pink Floyd London, Beatles-on-Acid London. London london london london.
So, I thought...how can I miss London without wanting to know the world? So, boy-oh-boy-smack-my-ass-and-call-me-judy did I ever feel silly. I have this incredible opportunity to see this side of the world and I'm spending it missing the other half. Like the Japanese man in that story. When we're somewhere, we're homesick for elsewhere.
We spend our days wishing for the other days...the days swallowing the other days...whole.
So, I wanna think of it this way.
I came here right before the Western New Years and had a whole host of expectations. I'm lucky because I now have another New Years. I get to start my year twice. I get a double-shining, brand new sparkley blank canvas. So I'll paint. I have a few colours now but I'll make a mess anyways.
Let's hope some call it art.
I'll make no promises, no resolutions. Zero expectation. I wish for nothing but knowledge. All of it. The good, the bad, the shitty, the heartbreaking, the hard, the awful, the inspiring. I wish for my Heung-deok monotonous morning and my peaceful yoga and my happy students and my new friends and their happiness. So, as the year stands naked before me I stand just as naked before it.
I'm smoking my last Toronto cigarette, eating my 12th...Korean rice cake. Happy New Year.
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