tales from Korea

I’ve been expecting some early morning warmth these days, a transition beginning to swing further to the side of spring, but alas, it hasn’t really been so. Only the the last few days have temperatures been keeping above freezing in the morning and holding themselves at about 10 or 12 degrees during the afternoon. I guess I shouldn’t be expecting the change to happen too fast, right? But it seems even Koreans are a little surprised at the slow crawl of spring and the constant gripping hand of winter. The new season has a lot in store for when it’s truly here: Blooming, including Cherry Blossoms and other Korean wild flowers, including the elusive national flower of Korea as well as a few nice holidays including the school trip in two weeks.

But more importantly, I’m sick of being sick, sick of being cold. What a complainer, eh? I usually don’t get too sick back home but I never really considered the whole spectrum of pathogens I’d be breathing and touching once I came over here. I’ve pretty much been sick for about 2-3 weeks, on and off. First there was a case of the cold followed by a relapse case of an auto-immune condition I have, which was a bit miserable. After that I seemed to develop a nasty chest infection (Most probably bronchitis), which can last anything from a few days to a few weeks. Needless to say, I haven’t been doing much the last couple of weeks beside sleeping, drinking water, taking medicine and complaining to Jayeon (To which she responds by hitting me for being so sick for so long). She puts it down to a mixture of exposure to new virus and bacteria as well as the blasted Yellow Wind from China/Asia.

While emerging one day from a subway station in Itawon I looked out over the top of the escalator steps and saw a dark yellow and gloomy sky. “What the f…?.” I was thinking. It looked a bit like a nuclear fallout, reminding me of the videogame I’d been played the few days previously. Jayeon informed me that this is the Yellow Wind; I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be so obvious and… all encompassing. It was disturbing, gloomy and a bit disguising.

I’m not even in China but I was probably affected more from a short walk through that dust then any other pollution in Seoul. I don’t know if it was this or a combination of things but so many people seem to have lung infections at the moment. Over half of the students at my school are now sick — a little higher then the swine flu pandemic last year. I don’t know about the rest of the population, though. Anyway all I can do is sit and wait through this transition of seasons and sickness and emerge with a body and a mind that’s ready to try some more challenges and adventures. Hey, I haven’t tried eating that live squid yet…

The end of a year and start of a new one, usually things go out quietly… One year rolls into another one, you can’t tell the difference and almost forget that it happens until you sign something and write the year date wrong. More has happened in the last 10 days then has really happened in the rest of 2009. My brother and his girlfriend had a baby, just a few days before Christmas. Jayeon and I announced our engagement, and just a day after, Jessie, the family dog was taken ill and had to be put down.

A few days of absolute joy, surprise, laughing and cheering as well as inevitability, incredible sadness and loneliness.

Jayeon and I haven’t made any dates yet, but it’s likely we’ll be married here in the summer of 2010. We won’t have anything high-key, you know us.

I want to congratulate Mark and Lindsay again, and wish the best for them and their baby.

I will miss my dog, terribly; I wrote a small document (13.3MB) with some memories of her.

Looking forward to this year… So many great things planned.