I arrived on the day of the spring clean up to find that it was canceled due to inclement weather - it was pouring down rain. The next weekend I called to get my name on the list of volunteers for the invasive plant removal event only to find out that they had misprinted the event date on the flyer and the event had already occurred. Then, I found the local adopt-a-highway program but tanked the whole idea when I learned "training" was required. There is really no point to this story, except choose your resolutions wisely.
My best resolution was the one I made December 31, 2003: no more soda! And today, two years and many dreams of drinking soda and waking up feeling relieved that it was just a dream later, I am still soda-free. And this makes me really proud. I once overheard a woman at a salon say to her friend, 'water is vile, I don't drink water' and I thought to myself, 'lady, you are stupid'.
Anyway, this New Year's I stayed inside, like every New Year's I've ever celebrated. I didn't go to the Boshingak Bell in central Seoul; instead I read The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, which sucked by the way. It was a typical and predictable love story. No twists or turns or major drama or steamy sex scenes. Furthermore, the character's Alzheimer's was written to seem sad but yet endearing and adorable at times ... in reality, there is nothing about the disease except sadness.
I started the New Year with food poisoning, specifically, the Norwalk virus according to my internet-based self-diagnosis. Both Matt and I fell ill after eating clams and oysters that we believe were carrying the virus and not fully cooked before ingestion. The stomach cramping was intense; like someone took a fistful of my innards and squeezed and twisted. It was a whole week before we were back to normal.
Matt and I, with Soan's family, went to Fantastic Studio - an outdoors film studio set used in Korean movies and daytime TV dramas - in Bucheon. This film set depicts 1930-1970 Korea with replicas of notable buildings and structures.
Last week I went to the Seoul Design Center and saw some 400 works of art (oil, water color, and acrylic paintings I believe) by local Korean artists. I really enjoyed the show and photographed my favorite works of art.
I've just finished reading the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. I enjoyed it because it was interesting to read the perspective of life for a child with autism.
Happy New Year!
1 comment:
i don't regret trying something new, even though it looked like brain matter; but i do regret not cooking it longer. actually the clams were very good - I'd eat them again, only i'd cook them longer! I didn't care for the mussels which were slimy and tasted like salt water.
last night matt had sundaeguk - a kind of soup with chunks pig in it. picture this: layer of pork, layer of fat, layer of skin, layer of hair all in one chunk. The skin and hair combo is about the most disgusting thing you could see coming out of a bowl of soup. I swear it looks like a man's upper lip has fallen into the soup and been cooked into a whitish color, but the short stubby hairs are black as night. GROSS!
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