we've found a nice neighborhood coffee shop (one of the twenty or thirty, that is), it has this somewhat outdoor open air room with fast wifi and cheap coffee. cheap coffee.. in this city? ha! it's hard to come by! coffee is so expensive here, it was one of the first things we noticed when we moved here. a cup of regular coffee, nothing special, and not that great even, is often five dollars! crazy! i guess when coffee first made it big in korea it was because of starbucks (go figure), and they had such high prices, so when smaller chains began to open up they felt that they needed to have comparable prices, so that people didn't assume that they were selling an inferior product, so that is how it happened! a beer is about a dollar and a half, a coffee is five bucks. but it is worth it for the jolt, and for the comfy place to relax on a busy corner and do all our internet stuff.
the weather has cooled down slightly, making it so bearable and comfortable. a typhoon came through yesterday bringing intense winds that cleaned the air and pushed the humidity out. this is good. humidity here is high and can be rather oppressive. the mosquitos are in full effect, as are the cicadas, these crazy loud screeching bugs that are now our soundtrack to summer. i haven't seen many cockroaches, although i hear they are "so bad" in this city. i'm glad i don't know that first hand, cause those pesky critters are the worst!
it took a lot of months but we are both finally feeling comfortable and "at home" in this giant city. it is normal to travel long distances to get to another neighborhood and we are accustomed to the spiderweb of public transit and the layered underground city. throngs of people wait at crosswalks, hundreds usually, and the foot traffic jams are inevitable, but again, it's come to be normal and less daunting, more exciting. it takes a while to get used to such a change from Portland to Seoul. and we will be complete experts at this place and then we'll leave! isn't that how life works. for now we are trying to really enjoy this city, for all it has to offer and what we can learn from their culture and our adventure.
i was perusing some old photos and came across some of the good old PDX, taken over the years. it is good to remember where you came from, and all the good things it has! so no photos of Seoul today, rather some old familiar sights:
Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home. ~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
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