I had one of those "simple pleasures" moments today. At 2 pm, I trudged out of the metro, totally exhausted from this weird nausea/no appetite/fatigue I've been suffering these past two days. Not to mention the thousand stairs one must climb to get out of every darntootin' metro station here.

I was headed in the direction of the office when I abruptly turned back with two words fixed in my brain: French fries.

There's a Burger King right outside of the metro station, and I headed in there and stood in front of the counter until I located the French fries. There they were: "Hu-ren-chi hu-rye-ee." (There's no "ffff" sound in Korean.)

I gave the countergirl the 1,000 won (less than $1 USD) and had to ask her to repeat herself when she asked "For here or to go" in Korean. She smiled and repeated the phrase, and I had a moment of utter gratitude that I was in Korea, where the fast food counter people are polite, because in my gee-the-floor-looks-like-it'd-be-nice-to-sleep-on state, I don't think I could have borne the usual American fast food serviceperson's resentment. Then she apologetically said that it'd be a minute before the new fries were ready, and if I could have, I'd have said, "I don't care that I have to wait! It's worth it to be smiled at!"

I walked out with my bag of small fries, and walked to work, stuffing my face with piping hot fries, remembering that Koreans don't eat on the street, then remembering that I didn't care, not when my mouth was full of grease and potato and salt. Mmmm.