Chillin'
Before my current sojourn here, I had spent a total of less than a year in the motherland. I was born in Seoul in March 1976, and was spirited off to the States in November of that year. The only time I came back (before now, natch) was in the summer of 1993. So this, my friends, is the first winter I have ever spent here, and if you allow me to indulge my Anglophilic tendencies for a moment -- "It's rather chilly."

Or as the Yanks say, "It's fuckin' cold."

The kind of cold that takes your breath away (literally! Didn't really believe it could happen!) and brings tears to your eyes, not the least because the blood in your ears has in a split second come to resemble a 7-11 red Slushee. The kind of cold that then causes you to really regret tearing up because the icicles they have formed are pulling out eyelashes with their weight. The kind of cold that causes you to resolve to buy those surgical masks that people wear here to, uh ... keep their lips warm? Avoid catching cold germs? Look stylish?

Well, maybe I won't go as far as buying a surgical mask.

Now, I realize that the U.S. has also been experiencing a cold snap, and that Double M, holed up in Minneapolis, will probably choke on her tea as she laughs her head off at these figures, but let us for a moment, consider them anyway:

It's about 2 in the morning in the East Coast as I write this. Currently, the temperature in ONC (Our Nation's Capital) is 32 degrees F (feels like 25) and in New York is 26 degrees F (feels like 21).

It is 4 in the afternoon here in Seoul, and CNN tells me it's 18 degrees F.

However, with wind chill, it is about -7 degrees F.

The Russian girls at school (who, with their pale skin, impeccable make-up, leather pants and careful coiffures, stand out like a murder of crows on a snowy field) have taken to wearing their fur coats, and the nuns have broken out their black down vests. (At least, I think they're down. I mean, I haven't gone and fondled one of the vests or anything.)

And I? I managed, somehow, to lose both a hat and a glove in one day, that day being -- naturally -- the first day of the cold snap. (Here, just let me spend a moment eulogizing my beloved black FBI knit hat, which I bought from a vendor on the National Mall in DC two years ago. FBI hat, you were the impetus for many a random conversation. You allowed me to strike Charlie's Angel poses whenever I replied, "Yes!" to the question, "So, are you FBI?" You allowed friends to quickly find me in a crowded area. And you never gave me hat head. FBI hat, may you make a homeless person on the subway -- where I so sadly lost you -- very happy.)

So I've bust out the heavy hitters: the matching scarf, hat and mittens (the kind connected on a string!) knitted by my Aunt Patty last year. Ridiculously, though, I don't want to wear the hat, because it's a little itchy and also gives me a terrible hat head, so I haven't, and have been gallivanting around bareheaded, with just yards of scarf wound around my neck and the bottom half of my face.

Despite this silly aversion to the hat part of the ensemble, I haven't been too cold, and have indeed enjoyed the cold weather, to my surprise. It's true that I don't appreciate the way my ears require a shot of brandy to recover from the ten-minute walk from the subway station, but overall, I'm actually enjoying the bitter cold.

And no, I'm not actually drinking brandy.
-----------------
Factoids about the climate of Korea:

Winter in Korea stays cold and dry from December to February. Meteorologically, most regions have clear weather ranging from -5 to 9 degrees Celsius (23 to 48 F), but the effective temperature is much colder because of the cold winds blown from Siberia. (http://welcome.korea.com/generalinfo)

Situated on the eastern side of the great land mass of Eurasia, Korea has a rather extreme continental climate considering that it is surrounded by water on three sides. The winters are very cold. Nowhere else in the world, in a similar latitude, are winters so cold with such frequent frost and snow. Summers are warm and, at times, hot. Most of the annual rainfall occurs between June and September. Some precipitation occurs in all months but, from November until early April, this is often snow. Snow falls on an average of twenty-eight days a year at Seoul and on about ten days in the far south.

The transition from the cold, dry winter to the warm, wet summer occurs rather quickly between April and early May, and there is a similar rather abrupt return to winter conditions in late October and early November. Over most of the country summer temperatures are high enough for rice to be grown extensively.

Korea is one of the most northerly countries to be affected by the great seasonal wind reversal called the Asiatic monsoon. In winter the winds are predominantly from the west and north, bringing very cold but dry air from north China and Siberia. In summer the winds are mainly from the east and south, bringing warm, moist air from the Pacific Ocean. The weather can be somewhat variable from day to day at all seasons, since the country is affected by frontal systems and depressions moving from the west. These bring rain or snow and occasional thaws in winter. In summer these disturbances are associated with the spells of heaviest rainfall. About once a year a typhoon moves up from the South China Sea and brings very heavy rain and strong winds at any time between June and September.

A surprising feature of the Korean winter is the large amount of sunshine, averaging as much as six to seven hours a day. Even when temperatures remain below freezing all day the sun may shine from a clear blue sky while the cold is intensified by the strong wind. Hours of sunshine are rather less during the wetter period in summer. The strong wind-chill factor intensifies the cold so that warm winter clothing is essential. Otherwise the climate is not particularly uncomfortable and is generally healthy. Humidity is higher in the summer, and some days may feel distinctly muggy and uncomfortable.

(Copped from the BBC website, http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/travel/features/south_korea.shtml, which copped it from the Hutchinson World Weather Guide, (C) Research Machines plc [2002] All Rights Reserved.)