So, I officially left Cambodia two weeks ago today. I remember when I left that I was sad to be leaving, excited to be heading to South Korea to see Aldrin (my boyfriend). The flights all went smoothly to Seoul. I was there around 8am and Aldrin was there to greet me. It was great to see his face. It was like a fairytale, the first four days we had together. We went out for dinners and I got to meet his co-workers/friends and we went to the Seoul Art Center to see an exhibition on Man Ray (and Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, Bill Brandt, Brassai). It was wonderful. I had fallen in love with Aldrin all over again when he came to Cambodia. And Seoul was no different. Then I made a big mistake and went to the Seoul airport to head back to the states a long 28 hours before my flight actually left the country. So....I got back on the bus toward Anyang to return to Aldrin's apartment. I arrived (which, frankly, I can't believe I found the place) around 5pm and knocked on his door. He wasn't home, so I decided the only thing that I could really do was wait for him to come home. It was cold. I propped my luggage up against his door and took a seat on the stairwell of the apartment building. For three hours, people walked passed me, up and down the stairs. No Aldrin. My fingers and toes had become numb by this point. I realized that sitting there any longer was going to be bad for my health (I had been getting up periodically and walking outside and then back in to keep my blood flowing). I had seen a small, corner restaurant that looked warm and as though it may serve soup, so I eventually decided to leave my bags sitting outside Aldrin's door and go across the street to the almost empty establishment. I grabbed my important documents and objects (i.e. passport, flight tickets, money, credit card, camera, hard drive-which had all my images from Cambodia on it, etc.) and walked out of the building. I entered the restaurant and took off my shoes where all the other shoes had been abandoned on the floor. I could instantly feel my face beginning to thaw from the warmth of the place. I scuffled my feet across the floor over to a table and sat down on the hardwood floor. There were only four pictures up on the wall and since I couldn't read or speak Korean, and no one in there could speak English (or maybe they just weren't willing to, I don't know), I pointed to the bowl with the red broth that looked like it had noodles in it. A few minutes later, The warm broth arrived along with about ten side dishes of different things one could add into their soup. I picked up the chopsticks and poked through the bowl. My inspections revealed many different species from under the sea, so I decided it was a seafood medley. There were chunks of fish, squid, seaweed, etc. in the bowl. I thought, "How great! I'm a vegetarian and I chose the seafood! This is perfect!" So I began to eat. And the broth was so warm that I had to keep blowing my nose and dabbing the water from my eyes (which I'm sure the other patrons really appreciated and found appetizing). As i was eating, I submerged my chopsticks in the broth and pulled them back out to find that I had fished for something that didn't look "fishy". I had a hunch for what it might have been, but I put it in my mouth, nonetheless, and bit down. Yep, it was brain. Now, brain of what, I didn't know. It was small, but I began to realize that maybe fish didn't have brains, and if they did, they surely were not as large and as defined as this one. Still, trying to bring my body temperature back up, I took another bite. It really wasn't half bad to tell you the truth. And, to be honest, I've eaten a lot worse. Soon after I took another bite, I realized that, by looking at the part of the brain (or whatever it was) still hanging on the chopsticks, I could see what appeared to be a brainstem. That was it. I was done. No more for the vegetarian (who eats dog AND brain, apparently).
I paid the bill and walked back across the street. As I entered the door of the apartment building and rounded the first set of stairs, I could see my luggage still sitting outside of Aldrin's door. AHHH!!! That meant that he was still not home. It was around 9pm at this point. I sat back down on the stairs and repeated my earlier routine of sitting, standing, then walking outside (half looking for Aldrin, half trying to get my blood flowing again). Armed with only my zip-up hoodie (because it wasn't exactly cold in Cambodia and I'm just that smart to forget completely that Seoul might be cold in December), I really began to feel the night's cold. Around 11:30pm a girl that lived upstairs came in the front door of the building and almost walked right into me. She said she was sorry. She spoke English!! Thank god. Okay. But she went as quickly as she came in. "Damn! I'm going to be out in this cold all night," I thought. A few minutes later, I heard footsteps coming down from the stairwell above. It was the same girl equipped with a blanket, some hot tea, and her cell phone. I had tried to call Aldrin earlier from a payphone type of thing, but I had a hard time figuring out how to work it (yeah, I'm a genius). So the girl asked if I had Aldrin's cell phone number and I gave it to her. She called a few times. No answer. Then she told me there was an empty apartment right above Aldrin's that the tenants had moved out of just that morning. She took me upstairs and let me into the vacated room. I laid the blanket out on the floor and sat down. Before I knew it, the door was opening and I was waking up from a pretty deep sleep....probably a coma. It was Aldrin. "What the hell happened??!!? Why didn't you call me??!?!" I gave him the story, told him I tried to call. Then we walked down to his apartment and I fell asleep as soon as I got inside.
I woke up a few times in the night and looked over to see him awake. I wondered why he hadn't been asleep and thought maybe it was because there were two people shoved onto a bed that was made, really, only for one. I fell back asleep. He woke up really early and took off for the gym. A few hours later, after I had showered and gotten dressed, he returned to the apartment. He got ready for work and we said goodbye (again) and he left. A few hours after that, I got back on the bus toward the airport and a few hours after that, I boarded the plane into Chicago. And that was Seoul.
