Wednesday - Getting ready to go :-(

Where I had lunch

I spent the morning packing everything I won't need tonight or tomorrow.

I went out for lunch at about 11:30. It was chilly. I walked up the street behind the hotel, YongJi-Ro. It is really the larger street but the back street I consider to be the front seems to have all the businesses and other hotels, and people hanging out in the evening, so if you come by cab that is the entrance to which he brings you. I was craving a sandwich but knew, short of the International Hotel which would be expensive, I wouldn't find one. Convenience stores have prepared sandwiches but they are not appetizing. I found a small attractive place across the street a few blocks north and went in. I got mil-myun (like nang-myun but with wheat noodles) with donkatsu. (돈까스) which is a breaded pork cutlet.

At Tiamo coffee shop

 After lunch I started back to the hotel looking for a coffee shop. I stopped at “Tiamo” and had an Americano and a blueberry gelato. I tried to buy a mug and was told the price but that she couldn't sell me one now. She'd have to order it. I explained I am leaving tomorrow but she just couldn't sell it. I bought some tooth paste and some iced coffee at the CUs across the back street and came back to the room.

At the sushi restaurant

Geoffrey picked me up after work. I had packed up and we agreed I’d stay at his place that night. We went back to his place to get Yeji but they had their signals crossed and she was at the hotel. We agreed to meet at the restaurant, a sushi place in SangNam-Dong, just south of the dolmen I saw yesterday. It was a nice place and it seemed like the owner was giving us extras. It turned out to be my birthday dinner and Yeji gave me a CD on traditional pansoroi which she got in Seoul. We had a good dinner of sushi, including one dish of cooked beef cut and presented sushi style; not my thing. After dinner Geoffrey went for the car and I waited with Yeji in front of the restaurant while we had a nice "'Dad' and daughter" talk. She put her arm through mine, snuggled up, and told me how she is strange and as an artist sees things differently from other people. Nice.

We picked up my things at the hotel and we all went back to their place in Sarim-Dong where I spent the night, planning an early departure in the morning.

New York City, 7th Avenue from the shuttle

Thursday - We got off by about 6:20 and got to the airport in time. I returned the cell phone and checked in. The rest was uneventful, the flight to Tokyo, then a long one (12 hours) to JFK. Pat was stuck in traffic on the NJ turnpike and I ended up taking two shuttles to Penn station, then Amtrak to Wilmington. Pat was going to pick me up there but was still in north Jersey so I took a cab home.