A Dozen Breath Mints

Double booked for lunch, I pursued the ill-considered path of dining twice.  Cold noodle soup at 11:30AM.  I wasn’t hungry at all.  The night before we stuffed ourselves on bulgoki.  The more pieces of beef, I placed in the lettuce the more new beef was ordered.  I tried to roast the garlic, as one can with the pile of raw cloves and a grill in front of you, but it didn’t do much to kills the taste I’m discovering this morning.  I must have chewed a dozen breath mints till now to cut the after-musk that perfumed my mouth.  The second lunch then, more blugoki, more beef.  Now my suit pants are feeling rather stretched. 

Meetings are done for a bit.  That’s good to know.  Riding up over a hill in Gangnam, heading back to my hotel in the afternoon.  I will dutifully plug in my computer and try to work, but I suspect I’ll be napping shortly after arriving and eyeing the bed.  Indeed, the bed is already in my mind’s eye.  To my right there are delivery men on motor cycles passing so close to the side of the car, I feel reminiscent of China. It wouldn’t work this way in Japan.  How tiring it must be for Korean people to forever be stuck between the China-Japan comparison. 

Traffic is grinding here in Gangnam at 3:15PM.  I don’t think my driver had much of a choice beside driving up this main boulevard to the north of Coex.  The river must be up ahead,  but I am just guessing.  This guy consistently rides the left lane, gets as close as he can at the light and then tries to cut back out of the folks who must pause, to turn left.  This is something he must have decided upon doing long ago as it is routinized to [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[d[

I suppose I should leave that.  That I what I wrote as dozed off with my finger down on one of the keys which I’m not sure I now how to name. Well, I suppose it is an open bracket.  I woke up suddenly and looked out the window.  For a riveting burst of confusion, I’d no idea where I was.  Speeding.  A river.  OK, the Han River.  Right, it’s Seoul.  A second hazy day in Seoul.