Louis Armstrong in Seoul

I felt nostalgic several days ago for a memory of my Toronto experience. I was really depressed, so I decided to go exploring the underground mall under the Manulife Centre. I was in a gift shop, and I heard Louis Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World." It lifted my spirits at the time. So, yesterday Ian and I went to a bookstore, and in the bookstore I bought my first jazz CD. Actually, it was a two-cd set, but it was only about $17 CDN. So now I can listen to "What a Wonderful World" anytime I want. I listened to the first CD when I woke up today, and I listened to that song many times.

Now I am going to try to buy a cell phone. It's a lot of work to get a lan line, apparently, and I just learned that I don't need a Korean to sponsor me for a pay-as-you-go cell phone. Now, if I feel nervous about the eye gouging man, I can call for help (I now know the police emergency number). Also, I can call my loved ones! And I can make local calls to Ian much more easily, without having to go all the way down the hill to the payphone. Wish me luck! I'm looking for an English menu with a good volume.

In the mean time, I've completely f**ked my back, and I can't bend it in the slightest way without a lot of pain. This includes putting on my socks, of course. I am trying to sleep in better postures, and today might be slightly better than yesterday.

And...my thanks to Alexandra & Missy & Ian for their emails!

Crickets and Whiskey

Did you know in Seoul there are a million crickets? I once walked by a construction site at night. There was not a tree in the area, and I heard crickets! Outside my bedroom window, there must be thousands in the trees, although I think that they are dying off, now.

I remember how shocked I was in Montreal when I discovered how the local corner stores sold beer. Well, here, convenience stores, department stores, and just about everybody sells Scotches and Whiskeys! And they are high end, western Scotches, often enough! I haven't had any, yet, alas!

Eye-gouging man, episode II

As I mentioned in a previous post, there is a very strange man in the subway who wears a mask and holds a dog. When I saw him earlier this week, he made a gouging motion at my eyes with his two fingers, and a hitting motion at my head. He didn't actually touch me, but he came close.

Last night, at a different subway station (one off the earlier location), he saw me again, and again made that awful eye-gouging motion with his fingers. I stared straight ahead (he was on my right), and pretended I didn't see him. The man terrifies me. He made the gouging motion at my eyes again after I didn't do anything in response to the first motion, and came closer to me. The other people in line for the subway (which wasn't in the station at that time), turned and looked at the man, and he went away. Just as I was getting out of the car at my own station, who should I see but this strange masked man, in the same car, getting out at the same station?! That really freaked me out, and I took a detour on the way home to try to throw him off. I felt he was following me, although I can't say for certain. I called the police from an internet cafe, but owing to (lack of) English proficiency at their end, and my hearing loss at mine, I opted to decline to have an officer come to me. (It would have been hard to describe my apartment's location, anyway--I was calling [after I went home to get my school's contact info, which the police required] from my next door neighbor's phone upstairs, after midnight. The neighbours, who are the only other Western people in the area, were quite concerned. On Monday, with the help of the office staff at my school, I am going to talk to an officer in person, and I have already made up a statement about what happened. I don't want to go through the subways in the evening being scared by a possibly insane masked man gouging at my eyes!