I'm back in Canada. The last few weeks were spent packing up, saying farewells, visiting Thailand, visiting Laos, returning to Korea and saying more farewells.

Photos and things soon!

Walking home in the midday heat, I run into the man at the kimbap nara who so expertly rolls up my tuna-mayo, and whose daughter is my girlfriend's student. I bow hello, stop, and chat in rudimentary Korean. He gestures at the leafy greens poking out of my grocery bag and I pull them out for inspection. What are they? he arches his eyebrows at the unfamiliar produce. Hell, I don't know. My staple spinachey green is out of season and I'm trying new things. His expression suggests I've bought inedible weeds. I shrug and parade my more familiar goods from my bag -- olive oil, carrots, sweet potato -- fumbling the Korean name of each and letting him correct me.

Walking on I meet the old lady from the next building who collects recylables in her wheel barrow. Like many elderly Korean women she's hunched like Quasimodo and wrinkled like a grimace. We're familiar and greet each other warmly. I repeat the grocery show-and-tell. She seems equally interested in what I eat

I still remember when the local grocer, who'd always seemed a bit suspicious of me, learned my profession a while back. Work, what? he asked accusingly of me. Me being a grown man, casually fruit-shopping (a housewife's task!) in the middle of a work day. Computer, at home, I said and watched him have his aha-moment, his demeanor warming instantly. I wasn't some criminal or useless exploiter after all.

It occurred to me what a mystery I must have been to the local observers. Strange non-teacher foreigner, loafing about in his jeans and sneakers... but now I'm no longer so strange, just some dude eating my weird vegetables like everybody else. I've come a long way.

I'm in a PC bang -- that is internet cafe, but Koreans laugh at that term -- called Star Wars. It is bowling-alley smokey and the lighting is very blue.

Tomorrow I'll probably be climbing Seoraksan with my brother who is in town. And this weekend more friends are flying in and it should be a fun-marathon. A fun-athon.

Also, Thailand and Laos soon. And then back to Canada. I'll also post some photos from the Jisan Rock festival from last weekend.

And I had my first kimchi-cheese-rice thing today, and... it was... kinda delicious.

Also, Michael Jackson died, eh? H1N1. Obama.

Et cetera. That covers EVERYTHING.

Yep, I'm still here in Korea, hanging out in our small neighbourhood outside of Seoul. Doing the work thing, doing the weekend thing, doing the summer thing, but man, it's almost time to go, almost time to leave this place and what have I learned? I don't know and I'm trying not to think about it and departing and the good things waiting and those to be left behind and just keeping my eyes on what's in front of me. I can draw grand conclusions later or better yet not at all, but damn, that exit-date is looming.

PS. Watermelons are delicious right now.

Friday finds us in a van on a mission to the East Coast. (It seems the threat of missiles always sends us running to the sea.) This is our Korean roadtrip. The van is half the size of our apartment, large enough for us to stretch and recline as we watch the dark landscape and ruin our insides with junk foods in true roadtrip tradition.

We arrive at 2AM and check into a motel. Six to a room with blankets and some thin mats on the floor. It feels like a slumber party. Toothbrushes are shared. We sleep in, miss our date with the sunrise.

After breakfast, we walk to the sea. The waves are big, the breeze strong, and the sand coarse. There are some vendors and in the distance a misplaced cruiseship. It sits on a cliff and faces the ocean, some kind of attraction. It looks real enough to trick eyes and brain into a temporary dispute.

We don't stay long, go to a sheep farm instead.

The rest of the weekend is more routine. Essentially loafing, anything but going home. The Koreans have a word for being home and feigning absence. Do they have a word for flâneur?

It's my birthday. I'm in Beijing. That's what's going on. Details to follow.

Thank you.

Here's this watercraft scooting around the Han River. I call it a dolphin mobile, but that seems slightly insulting to dolphins. Dolphins, you're much cooler.




What were we doing at the Han River? Checking out some cherry blossoms which is weird because there are perfectly nice blossoms right in our neighbourhood and this was just much more crowded. But I did get to photograph these two seniors. (They're a couple, I think.)





I'm still fascinated by old Koreans. They're so tiny, wizened and wrinkly, but so out-and-about and put-together too.

Then we just sat in a big pile of dried up leaves and joked around and it was fun but somehow I got leaves all down my pants and it got crazy itchy but okay that was fun too.

Then, cops.



Just the usual pimple-faced mob, sitting around as an intimidating presence. There must have been some activists activating nearby.

Then, skates and bicycles! More fun than cops.






We took a random turn in Seoul and walked through some alleys and the sun was setting pretty and we grabbed some drinks and had some fun around the cheonggyecheon and were happy to see a sprinkling of Korean public drinking.






And, Nana still loves you.




Dove?




Pop-up menu, salami sandwich and broccoli soup.








This place.




Then we watched a movie that taught us a Korean cuss word and Vin Diesel was alright but it would have been funner if you were there.

*** Update START ***

Friends and family have been making regular appearances in my dreams. I think it's my brain getting what it wants.

I'm slowly working away on a big paper bag of peanuts that I bought from a lady. She scooped them up from a tarp on the floor inside a subway station. It occurred to me that the interaction didn't strike me the least bit unusual, which I guess means I'm getting used to things here. This makes it more tricky to pick out little quirks to write about -- they don't seem so quirky anymore.

Work has got me pretty busy these days. It's a bummer. It has consumed me just as it has at home; a strange feat of teleportation of sorts. I'm trying to balance things out.

I am still totally in love with curry udon, although I think maybe I'm burning myself out on it, I'm way over that Kanye album, sort of, and I'm really looking forward to reading "The Savage Detectives".

I don't blink at the term foreigner anymore. Last weekend was full-on foreigner meeting frenzy. I'm just about the only non-teacher among them.

I felt pretty clever when I oiled my creaky chair with olive oil.

Today, I ate my 참치 김밥 straight out of the tinfoil, with my hands, alone, in front of the TV, watching an episode of America's Next Top Model. How un-Korean. I guess it could have been poutine or something.

*** Update END ***

Cross a border and Friday the 13th loses its malevolent magic and chocolate only goes one-way on Valentine's.

My social constructs are tumblin' down!

In other news, I'm working my way through the corner store's instant curry catalogue, and whipping up lemon-sugar crepes from jeon flour mix. Fine cuisine!

I've set my times in the Philippines and Japan on the shelf. Neat capsules of experience, sharply delineated in memory, bookended by flights and train rides. Along with the first two months here in South Korea, they are periods convoluted with new sights, sounds and ideas. An extended highlight reel.

What begins now is that amorphous thing. That fuzzy, glossed-over, grey, mundane thing: daily routine. After the initial wide-eyed romp and gallop in a new city, I now take a deep breath and immerse myself in the cycle.

There's value in this, too. I have a chance now -- a slim shot -- at graduating beyond mere tourist-status. Hang on to your bonnets! Here come that real boring stuff!

Yeah, okay, there might be some fun things. I'll try to steer clear. Disillusionment here I come! Ennui go!

PS. Camera still broken. New one coming? Future = Pictures? Probably?

I'm back in Korea. It feels good to be home. Travelling has emphasized my familiarity with this place; Korea is less alien to me than Japan was. Are there degrees of "home"?

Three days earlier -- I'm on a shinkansen to Fukuoka. At night, Himeji, Kobe, Hiroshima and the rest all look the same as they speed past. On arrival, I take a quick walk to the hostel and read the letter taped up to the front door for me. Another letter containing the room key is taped to the front desk. It is as cordial as the first. Entering the dorm I find a third letter on my pillow, taped to the alarm clock I had requested. I couldn't have felt more welcome.

Three days earlier -- I'm dangling from a ski-lift at Mt.Yeti at the foot of Mt.Fuji. To the South the land zigzags in and out of the Pacific. To the North rests Mt.Fuji. To the East a Ferris wheel stands like a mirage in a plain edged by mountains. Ferris wheels seem to be everywhere in Japan. Big circular anachronisms radiating grandeur, quaintness, whimsy and romance all at once. I am snowboarding. The sun is warm. The snow is grainy and icy. The resort's sound system rotates through acoustic guitar ballads, Japanese reggae, and modern R&B.

Lunch is "fujiyama" rice. It is shaped to resemble Mt.Fuji with curry dripped down the side giving it the appearance of having a white snowcap. I am Godzilla and this mountain is delicious.

Riding home I try to capture a Japanese sunset. But it eludes me, sidestepping my aim like a boxer beyond the windows and ducking behind trees as the bus winds down the mountain.

Earlier still -- Sake. Onsen. Yuzu. The small town of Shizenju. Talk of Super Mario's tanooki suit. MOS Burger. Someone playing a shamisen in the distance.

We want friends. Funny, attractive, worldly creatures who will buoy us with their charisma, drown us in laughter, pay for every meal, mend our clothes, and tell us bedtime stories. They would be around all the time, and when we leave Korea they would cry and bring a homemade cake to the airport. We would cry together into the icing.

The other day we were leaving Seoul and I asked someone getting on what time the last bus would depart. He sat in the same row on the bus and we realized that he would be getting off at the same stop as us. He lives in our neighbourhood! And he's our age! And he talked to us! The possibility of friendship made us giddy.

Getting off the bus he talked on his cellphone, greeted his cool friends, and disappeared in the opposite direction. We were crumpled paper cups.

We shuffled home, lamenting what could have been, when suddenly we were catching up to him on the sidewalk. How what? We laughed in confusion. Where do you live? We live here. You're visiting a friend? She teaches English. Your English is very good. Haha!

Then something happened. We're not quite sure. Without a word, he picked up the pace, created distance, and quickly split off on his own. We were speechless, crestfallen. Something we did? Something we said? Friendship slipped through our fingers and we walked home.

I've been in Korea almost four weeks, but it feels a lot longer. There have been many new things to learn and adjust to:

A landscape that is tall, the opposite of sprawl, butting up sharply against the mountains with residential apartments that all look the same and commercial buildings drowned in gaudy neon signs.

A weather system that makes you forget the weather. It is always "nice". Warm during the day, cooler at night. It hasn't rained since I've landed. We feel a bit spoiled.

A language that changes the way my tongue sits in my mouth and the shape of my face when I speak. Okay, that's dramatic. But, yeah, kind of true.

A routine that is mostly reading, writing, watching and working during the week, and walking, seeing, spending on the weekends.

I guess you could say that we're settled in now. I did not have the panic-attacks and emotional breakdowns that Kowloon experienced when she first arrived. But then I did have a familiar face to welcome and guide me, by the hand, through an alien country. I also didn't have to teach a room full of strangers speaking another language the day after my arrival with minimal instruction.

I had it easy.
The apartment is small but cozy. We cleaned it up real good, put up pictures on the fridge and bought some plants. It feels a little like home already. I love the gas stove. Boiling water for coffee or tea is fast! Controlling heat for cooking is instant! When we eat in, we usually have cereal, or toast with eggs in the morning, rice or noodles with vegetables and frozen dumplings during the day.

We finished watching the first and only season of Freaks and Geeks. For a while we took respite in its North American familiarity. The characters became temporary family and friends in an environment that is, at times, cold and unfriendly. Alas, we've watched all the episodes. I've moved on to studying Korean and reading "One Hundred Years of Solitude".

I will post more pictures from the past long weekend, and from Wolmi the previous weekend. You can expect a tour of the apartment as well. You'll also find me signed on to instant-messenger-land more now. I stopped because of my new work schedule, and kind of forgot about it. Chat me up!

Right now, it's off to work, at my desk (and sometimes my bed).

I know that I must be coming off as a big, weepy softie, which I am, but realize that soon I'll be a hardbitten, ungroomed alcoholic in a foreign country. Hug me while you can. Right now I'm a soft-shell crab, but soon I'll be a deep-fried soft-shell crab.

And the sushi-metaphors keep on a-comin'. Can you handle it?

I'm still in Canada. I've moved out of my downtown apartment and back home with my family for three weeks.  The most difficult thing is not my mother (surprise!), it's the suburbs; there is nowhere to walk.  I also work from home, and consequently have been experiencing an unnerving bout of cabin fever.  A recent excursion to my old neighbourhood in downtown Toronto is a great release.  The old houses and streets lined with trees are familiar and comforting.  I see them with fresh eyes, and I haven't even left the country yet!  I take the subway back to Scarborough, again alienated in the suburban landscape, marooned in my own city.

I fight boredom with anticipation for travel.  My passport, ticket, clothes, books, toothbrush and 200,000KW are all packed up. I try to spend as much time as possible with friends here before I go. It is a good distraction, but can also feel forced.  Like that last set of dynamite rolls at all-you-can-eat-sushi, no one necessarily wants it, but you feel you should have it while you can.  Staying in on a Friday (and blogging) feels like a waste of precious Canada-time, but also like a sensible thing to do before a Big Exotic Adventure. 

Are you ready for me Korea?  I have been thinking about you.  Piecing together what you look like from the photos I've seen.  Imagining your personality from the stories I've heard.  All this hullaballo, displacement, primping and preening, for what is really just a big blind date.

Korea was floated as an idea. Korea, South Korea, was casually mentioned. Korea was talked about, then discussed, then discussed seriously, then for real, then for real for real.

Korea was decided on. Korea loomed. We were about to leave, soon to depart, almost but not quite gone, and nearly on our way. We were preparing, planning, packing, moving, waiting. A summer's half was swallowed up.

And then it happened, half-assed. Kowloon* took off, and Mantos** stayed behind.

Now Kowloon's seeing the big world, diving into new things. Me? My days are largely confined to a living room in a suburb outside of Toronto, semi-squatting in front of my laptop, playing a physics-based online flash game, and compulsively checking my inbox for some strand of transcribed excitement abroad.

It won't be like this for long. This stint begins with a small step, and then a somewhat larger one.

* Not her real name.
** Not my real name.