09. 05. DINNER

순두부찌개: spicy soft tofu soup

So this is what I leave with, the tofu restaurant down the street. We ate out. I think it’s a fitting last supper for this summer vacation — something unassuming, something close to home. You know, I used to hate going home in high school. I used to wish fervently that I’d be allowed to stay in the dorms, when we were sent home once a month. But then, as soon as we moved, I stopped hating it. Maybe it was because our new house was more spacious, maybe we had more room in our hearts afterwards, but that can’t just be it. I think it’s because we used to live here, in this exact spot, and then we had to move five minutes down the road because they were rebuilding the apartments. It’s just five minutes’ distance, but I think that all along, I couldn’t really forget that one day we would move out and back to our old home. And I think that it’s the same for this town, or this city, or this country — there’s a feeling that some people say they got when they met the love of their lives. That they’d be together for a very, very long time. I think it’s something like that. And everywhere else is just somewhere to rest your feet, a pause along the way. The heart’s been left at home. But in the meanwhile — on the road — keep moving, because if you stop, then you’ll start thinking. And if you start thinking, you’ll start being sad. So keep moving; drown out the white noise one day at a time. There are people who love you, no matter what gets in your way, so forget about everything else and the thousand terrible moments ahead of you. This is for myself, the only person I’m qualified to give advice to. You have your duties and to stay strong is one of them. Clutch, love, and sometimes you can cry. But in the meanwhile remember the love — think of the food, it’s all the same. It’s all good memories so keep those the best you can, even if you have to drown out everything else being gone. Focus. Hold that chin up. It will all wait for you.

09. 04. LUNCH

갈치조림: hairtail stew

Again the word “jorim” strikes us. It’s still not a stew at all, but I’m still going with it. We met in a small group for the last time after the previous day’s seminar, and we climbed a mountain to get to the faculty restaurant where we battled moths and mosquitoes and enjoyed the breeze and fantastic food. I am not that bad at separating the bones from fish, but I am still working on perfection. I got some quality counseling too as an added bonus — it did help, but I think being able to come home made everything better. Wow, I can’t stop talking about that. I swear I’m not usually this mopey about going home, you know, but it’s just that this summer vacation has been great, with all its stupid health problems and yelling and sweaty subway rides and bad movies. And I love home. Whether that word is a building, a room or a country.

09. 03. DINNER

전어회: hickory shad sashimi

I’ve been using the name “hickory shad” frequently enough that it actually sounds valid now. Here it is, the star of early autumn, mercilessly butchered whole and fantastic all the way through. Seminar weekdays save my soul. We would have gone to the fish market, but we didn’t actually know what we’d be doing or exactly how to get there or how things go down in that land, so we decided to just go to some sashimi restaurant (establishment, rather) where they had hickory shad. Luckily it didn’t take us long to find one, and my life was that much more complete. It’s calcium on a plate, kids. God it’s so good.

광어회: flounder sashimi

And some flounder because everybody loves flounder. I felt responsible for the two plates of hickory shad, though, so I didn’t have much of this. It was pretty good from what I could tell, but is it ever really bad?

매운탕: spicy fish soup

This isn’t usually my favorite part of the meal, since it’s the last thing to be brought out and it’s no longer raw fish. But today it was really good and I learned how to make it taste even better, so my fondness for it has skyrocketed. What you do is you add the bean paste, the garlic, and the leftover perilla leaves while it’s boiling. The bean paste apparently takes care of the fishy sensation, and everything else just tastes good. The more you know!

assorted cakes and ice cream

Yoghurt ice cream with espresso and green tea toppings, tiramisu, sweet potato and cheesecakes. We went down to 예술의 전당 on a whim after the meal, because the scenery there is amazing even when you can’t see it and the place makes you feel like you’re absorbing culture just by standing there. The cafe was called Mozart, how adorable is that. We walked a long while and talked and I’m really going to miss these meetings, but okay, enough of that, I’ll be back for the winter. Three weeks of it. In the meanwhile, I’ll look at pictures and salivate.

09. 02. DINNER

eel and rice on a perilla leaf (깻잎)

Perilla leaves always look so pretty in pictures. Here’s the marinated eel that we have had an oddly few times (does that even make any sense at all) this summer. I maintain that the grilled kind is better, but this was pretty good too after not having had it for a while. I feel just a bit useless — it’s nearly eleven in the morning, I’m leaving tomorrow, and I’m sitting in bed making backlogged entries. I should be packing, or doing the laundry, or a milion other things, but honestly if I start, it’ll just feel like leaving, won’t it. Well. At least I’m coming home for winter break. Four months isn’t torture, and fall semester has lots of little breaks. Four months, it’ll be fine. I should get these entries out of the way.

09. 02. BREAKFAST

tofu with soy sauce

Not the same kind of tofu that I usually get, this is harder and has a different purpose, but the portion is much smaller so it’s better to have for breakfast when you decide that the bread isn’t quite good enough to have two days in a row without inciting some sort of negativity from you. Completly unrelated to this (I hope), we’ve been reading 20th Century Boys to prepare for the upcoming film. So far we’ve been ashamed for knowing not much more about it than the word FRIEND and THE END OF THE WORLD. But Jesus God it is so epic. It’s got some flaws, or at least some elements that make me react in something less than awe, but the scale of the story is mindblowing and it’s genuinely emotional sometimes, and also it’s just ridiculously cool. It almost nearly makes me want to read Monster. TOMODACHI TOMODACHI, suckers.

09. 01. BREAKFAST

garlic bread with cream cheese

If the bread’s got garlic in it, that makes it garlic bread, right? We accidentally bought a thing of cream cheese that didn’t come in a sealable container, but was packaged like butter. So we felt that the cream cheese was in dire need of being eaten. Needless to say, this urgency wore off in a day or two and currently the rest of the cream cheese is sitting in a separate sealable container in the fridge. It’s okay bread, though, even if it doesn’t actually taste anything like garlic.