Sleeeepeeeee. It actually cools down quite a bit at night here, so it's not the heat so much as the light from the streetlamp streaming through the open window, the fact that it gets light at 5 am when I typically go to sleep at midnight, and the presence of at least one mosquito per night that zooms past my ear with that chilling buzzy whine. You know what I mean. The buzzy whine of imminent itchy madness. I hate the little buggers.

Had a nice if disjointed weekend due to strange sleep patterns: on Friday I was supposed to check out a taekwondo studio, but was so tired I just went home and slept til 8 pm, then woke up and read Felicity recaps on televisionwithoutpity.com until 7 am. Say it with me: hk, you are an idiot. I won't even hold up the defense that the show, which I never watched, is actually really engrossing (especially when you don' t have to watch bad acting).

I slept for 3 hours on Saturday morning, then was woken up by my grandmother coming to visit, followed by my aunt. Unfortunately, I had to meet my new language exchange partner (one of my work colleagues who wants to improve her English), so I didn't get to spend much time with them.

My language exchange partner and I had a good first meeting. I headed over to her neighborhood, where we ate some lunch and then went to her house, where she showed me her wedding pictures and told me some hair-raising Korean traditions. Like the banana thing. In front of their friends, the groom ties a banana on string around his waist, and the bride peels it. Without her hands.

And I thought the bouquet toss was humiliating.

Actually, I got the impression that this isn't that widespread, but it's well-recognized, and there are definitely people who still do this.

After meeting with Hyo-jong, I went to meet Mia at Gangnam, and spend a few hours with her there, hanging out. I thought that was the last time I'd see her in Korea, so I was a little sad, but strangely happy at the same time. You know all the stuff I've been writing about her and Lewis helping me turn a corner in the city of Post Breakup? Well, I think I'm learning the art of appreciating the moment. I appreciate every moment with Mia, and that is why I was able to watch her bus pull away on Saturday night and still walk to the subway station with a smile on my face.

I headed home after that, and talked with my grandmother a little bit. Amazingly, I wasn't annoyed as I have been in the past, probably because I can now communicate better with her. Remembering Mia's relationship with her grandmother, I even ask mine if she wanted to take a walk in the park on Sunday morning, and she said okay.

Unfortunately, I didn't take that walk in the end, because I was tired and didn't want to wake up. It's okay. Next time.

I had arranged with my friend Maiko and my classmate Etsuko to go to Namsan (South Mountain) on Sunday, but we ended up going to a Hanok Ma-ul, a pretty park with reproductions of old Korean houses. It's also where the Seoul time capsule is buried, to be opened in 2394, when Seoul will have been capital of Korea for 1000 years. Hm. Wonder how things will be then?

After the park, we had lunch, then headed over to Yeoido, an island in the Han River. It was a gorgeous, warm, breezy day, and tons of people were sitting on the grass, rollerblading, biking, etc. Maiko called two friends and they joined us at 5 or so. I called Mia, and it turned out that she wasn't doing much, so she joined us at 8 pm. At that point, the rest of the crew was ready to go eat something, but Mia had to head back home, so we split off. Instead of going right home, though, Mia felt like eating outside, so in true Korean fashion, we got two bowls of instant noodles, a bottle of soju, and a packet of dried squid, and sat on the riverbank under an astonishing full moon. Someone was setting off mini-fireworks in the distance. The night wind was cool and the soju was strong and the instant noodles were warm and Mia said, "This is perfect, this is the perfect way to spend my last night in Korea, with you, and that incredible moon, by the Han River -- it's just the way I wanted this year to end, and I didn't even know it."

Crazy, romantic Mia wanted to cross the Han River on subway Line 1, so we took a series of totally illogical trains to accomplish that, and at some point, we were talking about me feeling guilty about the breakup, and she said, "You have to believe that he's going to be okay. When S---- and I broke up, I was incredibly hurt, but I'm okay now. Things are good -- they're great. I'm happy. John will be too. I think you need to believe in that."

I'll try. I'm ... trying.

Around 10:45, Mia's train came along, and as I walked away (up the wrong set of stairs, as it turns out), she shouted out, "Helen!" I turned out to see her beaming face: "Thank you!"

No, my friend, thank you.