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2006, January 31

Hello from Korea

(Yes, Julie, I'm Asian.)

I'm at my uncle's appartment right now, where I have been since last Wednesday, Korean time. (They're 17 hours ahead; think 7 hours behind Olympia, but tomorrow.) I'll refrain from making the silly "Writing from the future" joke. Couldn't feel a pun for it.

Life's temperatures have been alternating between two Olympia weather conditions: A cold December day without rain, when outside, and July with the windows open when inside my uncle's appartment. He likes things hot. Sometimes when we wake up, the temperature is 29°C (84°F). It was like that one night when the family was watching TV, and he then put his coat on. If they believed in former lives, I'd say he was a very brightly colored Amazon treefrog before.

My time outside has been walking around downtown Seoul with my cousin, Hi-Young ("Hee Hyung") and her boyfriend. She and my aunt Maria have been intent on having me see Seoul sites, get myself slightly cultured. I've enjoyed the experience, and taken over 200 pictures so far (most of them even in focus!). I got a nice camera the day before I left (model DSC-T5), and am very happy with that decision; I got to photograph my grandma, getting her to smile, and show her a picture of my brother and bird. It made her happy to see family outside of the nigh-19-year-old photo album my mom's siblings have of my family.

About my grandma: She doesn't have much longer to live. Her liver has functionally died, and her gall bladder has stopped working, so food can't be ingested anymore (just vomits up after ten minutes). She's getting glucose via IV for sustenance, along with a few other substances, to prolong her living. Unfortunately, she's also suffering an onset of pneumonia, so she has frequent fevers, too. The doctor's prognosis is that she will die within a week.

I will be here until she does die. It makes her very happy to see my mom and I, so neither of us will leave before she goes.

Well. While I'm here, I will read e-mails and respond to them. However, I'm trying not to spend much time on the computer, besides writing in my travelogue (which I'll publish when I get to some photo-editing software in English, and not cutely confusing), and doing some work for my office to cut down on the weekends I'll have to work for making up vacation time I'm taking but don't have. I'm also rediscovering the lost art of sitting down and reading a book. It has been quite relaxing.

I'll be back in a week. In the meanwhile, here are a puppy and some guppies.

Kor_Husky.jpg

— A big dog seen by a farmer's store / greenhouse we stopped by a few days ago.

Kor_Guppy.jpg

— Seen in a Korean department store. Can you see the fat one? Man, was he fat. (This is my present for Julie, more fish for her aquarium.)

This Travelogue published by Loup-Vert on January 31, 2006 at 07:32 PM
Comments (6)

I'm sorry about your Grandma, but I'm glad you're having a good time in Korea, and I can't wait to see the pictures.

Posted by: Aaron on February 1, 2006 12:13 PM

that is an extreamly fat fish. It reminds me of my old fish, named of course "mr. fishy" Unfortunatly Mr. fishy died, an to protect me my mom kept replacing the fish; until one day I discovered that Mr. fish was A LOT bigger than usual. My mother could hide it no longer, and Mr. fishy was buried along side all his other counter parts. Now if I had fish, my cats would be licking their lips and saying "hey finnally they put in a buffet!"

Posted by: Melissa on February 1, 2006 03:19 PM

seriously, i had no idea. i think someone told me that earlier and i just forgot. i was surprised then too.

thanks for the fish! i'd say it shouln't go in the saltwater aquarium lest it die, but that shouldn't really be too much of a problem.

-julie

Posted by: julie on February 2, 2006 02:41 PM

I hope to see the pictures as well. Goldfish come in some very bizarre varieties...

Posted by: David Chen on February 2, 2006 08:08 PM

I would offer you my slide-show script, but it is currently out of commission. I was going to rewrite it last summer, but never got around to finishing. Have a good time and I look forward to reading more blogs when you return.

Posted by: Nato Tomato on February 4, 2006 11:19 AM

Hërr Tomato: Don't worry about a slide show, or XSLery gallery. I currently have 389 pictures on my camera, about 80 related to food and/or blurred. That's a bit much for XSLery, perhaps, considering I wanted to rewrite that myself. I'll spend my first day back writing up my travelogue, adding graphics as it goes. Hopefully I can finish that before I dive into the back-hours of office work I have to make up.

Posted by: Loup-Vert on February 4, 2006 06:45 PM
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