My fickle heart and wandering mind
It's 5:45 already? It's bright out, doesn't seem that late.
Slept 'til 10ish and Yong Yong made it clear he didn't want me going anywhere today. Yesterday I took him to the vet and got some painkillers. A few days ago he was under the blanket on the couch and I accidentally sat on him, and an injured leg would explain the peeing on the bed. It's a cat thing--he's hidden the limp as best he can but it's there if you're looking for it, and dominant/bad behavior is how cats respond to stress. They're very careful not to show weakness, so the hooman has to be smart. I slept through last night, he spent most of the night that I was aware of on the bed, and the bed is dry.
But yeah, he did not want me to go. I've a wandering spirit though, and staying home today wasn't going to happen. I needed to explore my new environs, so after doing the dishes at home and otherwise puttering around until noon the hunger got the best of me and I headed out for breakfast and wandering. Grabbed a bus to the nearest major train station, Jamsil, figuring I'd ride the rails to Gangnam or wherever.
Never got out of Jamsil. See, what I failed to appreciate is that Jamsil station is a mall, a very big one, a department store, an outlet store, and an underground shopping center all tied together under a lot of apartments, and just down the block apparently from an amusement park. Some other time on Lotte World, but at least now I know where it is and how to get there.
But it's funny, because I've had Japan on the brain all day. I sat down to talk to some locals last night and mentioned how I got here, namely being de facto out of work and having a crush on a Japanese actor (see icon). So that was on my mind when I found myself in the underground shopping center, one I'd swear I'd been to before. All of Jamsil was deja vu, and much of that vu was Osaka. The shopping center...I dimly remember getting lost in one so very much like it, on a day when I was lost and dealing with passport issues. Even after all my shopping today I get on a bus and the place is an awful lot like Osaka, not as dense as most of Seoul but still respectably a city. There was an overpass at an odd height with light-train power lines on it, which I think is what took my brain back there, very similar to the Osaka-Kyoto train connection that baffled me both times I was there, where I broke my watch. Other than that it's really nothing I can put a finger on. Jamsil had a Kyobo bookstore, not as cool as the one by Seoul City Hall but still cool enough to get magazines in English and French (and, if I'd been so inclined, German and Japanese).. No Spanish though--I'm curious whether I'd be able to read that and with how muh difficulty. French is a slog but I do understand it in the end. I'm still bent on learning Japanese but the woman at the Rosetta Stone software counter was rather intimidating, and the rest of the bookstore did not have Japanese-for-English-speakers. They had Japanese for Korean speakers and Korean for Spanish speakers and a few other odd permutations, but not the one I wanted. So I'll keep looking.
Must get a home computer, as speaking practice here at PCbang is awkward, eh?
The school has loaned me a laptop for some work I wanted to get done last week and didn't reclaim it yet. So it's at my apartment being a glorified jukebox for now. In...I don't know when, and that's not good--awhile when I have to take the online class they'll loan it to me 'again'. The last teacher walked off with one or they and I would feel a lot more secure about just handing the damned thing to me. Though it is a nice beastie, looks brand new, has Bluetooth and a webcam. Maybe I'll take it to the coffee place tonight and see if I can work the 'tooth. I shouldn't take a computer to my coffee, as part of the reason for coffee is to get away from such high speed diversions, but it would answer one question. Just once. Nevermind that I put my shopping on my bank card today and have no idea how far over budget I am right now. But TGIFriday's for lucnh...not a bad day at all.
Now off to do the math on my game. No pcitures, sorry, though I'll have to go back to that Methodist church and get you some pix of that. It has spires and Gothic shapes, but it's all glass and steel. Very weird.