I have already written more here than I wrote the entire year I was in London.

Do I need to cut back, or is it simply that more things are happening to me in Seoul?

Over the weekend, Young-Kyeong took me to meet one of her fellow Korean English teacher friends, who teaches at a rich high school in Seocho, in the same district as my school. We had dduk-bogi (similar to bulgogi, for those of you with a working knowledge of Korean food, but with long white dduk fried in the red pepper paste instead of pork/beef, often fried along with various vegetables, hard-boiled eggs, and somewhat tasteless thin fish patties). Ddukbogi is really spicy, and Young-Kyeong was really concerned that I wouldn't be okay with it, but I swear, if you saw me now, you would never know that I used to avoid spicy food. I loved it.

Then, they took me on a tour of Namsangol Hanok village, one of the traditional-style villages that are open for tourists, and afterwards, Young-Kyeong took me to Namsan (Nam Mountain) Tower (the aforementioned phallic symbol, which doubles as a lookout tower). Here's a sampling:

I am peeking through a Gisaeng (gee-sayng) cutout, Korea's version of geisha.

Young-Kyeong, in queen's garb.

In-Jeong, I think? In "nice lady" clothes.

Portrait view of Namsan Tower.

Chonggyecheon (Chonggye Stream), which makes a semi-circle around downtown Seoul and deadends in the Hangang (Han River). It's an old (OLD) highway, I think, that was unearthed and converted into a stream about 10 years ago in an effort to make the city greener.

Trees, then skyscrapers, then trees on top of skyscrapers. (@andmyfeetare it's okay if you replace "trees" with "buildings," as long as you don't replace trees with buildings.)

In Namsan Tower viewing deck, @bird_esque. You can tell we're doing a touristy thing because I was not the only Caucasian person there.

@warmandbarky, Buenos Aires was behind the candy machines.

Young-Kyeong, next to the window looking towards her hometown, Busan (on the southern/southeastern coast of Korea).

Hello, U.S.A. How are things?

Y'know, tevs.

Horizontal lines of yellow lights = bridges across the Hangang; vertical lines of light = lights lining the river docks. I <3 the river at night.

tango, or NOTHING.

NOTHING, you understand?

@bird_esque @warmandbarky @gambolholic I FUCKING FOUND IT.

Starting this week, Monday nights are tango lesson&milonga nights for me. Hold me to that, will you?

My co-workers are all very consistently concerned (part 2): that I don't like spicy food. Which is true, usually. Those of you who have gone with me to Indian restaurants know this well.

But my former habits notwithstanding, I've been eating everything I think I can stomach from the school cafeteria - which means a helluva lot of spicy food. I don't even blink at kimchi anymore. And I'm pretty sure that my spice tolerance has gone up significantly over the course of the past month. (Sidenote: I'VE BEEN HERE A MONTH. WEIRD.) At first, I needed to drink cold water after every meal and my mouth would still burn for 10 minutes or so... but now my mouth doesn't burn at all, and more and more frequently I join my co-teachers for hot rice tea immediately following the meals.

All of that, with one notable exception: Wednesday this week, I took a serving of hard-boiled egg cooked in soy sauce with vegetables that I thought looked like sweet peas. Hey, I love sweet peas! I'll take a big bite of them. But as we all know, they were hot peppers, not sweet peas. My mouth flamed and my eyes watered profusely, and I had a good laugh about it with the other teacher (all of whom had known to avoid the hot peppers, of course). Now, every time they tell me about a Korean food I haven't eaten before, they say: "It's a little spicy, but less spicy than hot peppers." Giggle giggle. It's great.

I taught shy girl again today, and she spoke! Just a little, just for a second, but it made me really happy and relieved.

Thursday after work, I was invited to join the teachers' meditation club, and why not? I've never really tried it before, but now seemed like the perfect time.

It lasted two hours. There was a professional meditation therapist visiting the school this week, so the club took 4 times as long as it usually does. And everyone went around and shared their feelings in Korean - I had no idea sharing feelings was a part of meditation! - and of course, I was the only one who spoke in English (though there were 3-4 people there who could what I was saying). Several of the teachers shared their feelings for extended periods of time, and many of the club members started crying while they were talking. I felt really awk. It probably would have been really emotional if we spoke the same language, but as it was, I just didn't understand.

Parts of it I really enjoyed, and found useful. But I don't know how I feel (hehe) about the sharing of feelings at the beginning and end of the session. I haven't decided if I'll return to the club or not. It meets every Thursday.

Teachers' choir is wonderful. After practice today, they served snacks which tasted like Devil's Food cookies. Only they were chocolate-dipped rice cakes. Dduk dduk dduk. Man, that chocolate really hit the spot.

Tomorrow evening, I'm visiting Park Mi-Ran's house. She's offered to teach me how to make [a dinner dish the name of which I can't remember, which consists of sweet potato noodles, served cold with steamed vegetables and suchlike], and then take me night-time hiking with her husband and her on the mountain next to her house. Lordy-Lou.

The End! Heartz.