I wore jeans tonight for the first time in months, and they felt soooo good. I felt energized just wearing them. Although the foliage is still lushly green in the city, fall is definitely just around the corner. My dad said there's a saying in Korean about fall: "High sky horse fat." I suspect it's Chinese in origin, it has the nice four-word ring that many Chinese phrases do; in any case, the idea is that in the fall, the sky looks opened up, wider and higher than in the muggy, stinkin' summer. Horses that hadn't been able to eat much during the scummy, humid summer suddenly start chowing down, their appetites stimulated by the crisp breezes. Today felt fall-ish, all of a sudden. What's good for the horse is good for the rider, right?

This weekend was great. I mentioned on Friday that my plans for going out of town with Maiko and my colleague Soonji had fallen through, but that was mainly because I'd been depending on Soonji to buy the train tickets, and she'd gotten sick, so she wasn't up for going. Shortly after I wrote the last entry, though, I decided that: 1. I really wanted and needed to get out of town; and 2. I should take a little responsibility upon myself and just go, dammit, go. I looked up some bus schedules and talked to Maiko, who was so sure that we'd be able to find a bus and a hostel that I took heart.

After work on Saturday morning, then, I met up with Maiko at the East Seoul bus station and we bought the tickets and got on the bus. Except for a trip out to my grandmother's, I hadn't been out of the city for six months, so I was beyond thrilled. Traveling makes me so happy. Even the drizzle, which turned into steady rain the moment we pulled out of the station, couldn't bring me down.

We went two hours east to a town called Chuncheon, famed for its takgalbi (chicken barbecue) and makgooksu (cold buckwheat noodles), beautiful lakes, annual mime festival and a separate annual puppet festival. (We missed the last two by a few weeks.)

Upon arriving in Chuncheon, we set out to look for the tourist information center. Unsure of its location, we asked a guy on the street if he knew where it was. Since he was walking our way, we chatted briefly and when we parted, he gave us his card and told us to call him if we wanted him to show us where a good takgalbi place was. Talk about nice!

At the tourist center, which was empty except for us and the employees, we gave ourselves over to a nice employee and she totally made out a schedule for us for the next day and a half. Because a famous TV drama was shot in Chuncheon, the tourism industry pushes the sites they used in the show. Since I'd never seen the drama, I wasn't very impressed, but Maiko got psyched.

As the tourist center woman suggested, we had dinner in Myongdong, a friendly little shopping area, on a street called Takgalbi Alley -- so named because there are about 30 little restaurants that all sell takgalbi. As you walk past, in true Korean fashion, the restaurant ajumas (older women) call out, "Come on in here, it's delicious, we'll feed you well, come and try ours out."

As it was raining, Maiko and I lingered over the barbecued chicken, wonderfully and fearfully spiced and fried with cabbage, sweet potato, rice cakes, spinach and other various things. Afterwards, we headed into the large underground shopping mall and made our way back to the hotel we'd found before dinner, on the way buying a sweet pair of pants each for about $7.

The hotel was nothing special but it was clean and dry, and we just couldn't make ourselves go out in the rain again, so we planned our next day and watched a bit of TV and speculated whether the hotel was a "love hotel" or not. The presence of the VCR, bottles of hair gel, lotion, p and hair spray, plus shampoo and conditioner called "Eros" seemed somewhat suspicious. Later I found out that many of these hotels conduct a brisk "love hotel" business, and often ask couples checking if they plan to stay the night. With young people often living with their parents until they get married, no wonder!

Maiko took the bed and I took the floor, and we fell asleep to the occasion shimmer of the disco ball from the club across the street.

We woke on Sunday and managed to get out the door by 8:30 am (I can't do this during the week, so I don't know what got into me). As the hotel ajuma wasn't there, and we didn't know what time checkout was, we left a note saying that we'd be back at 11 and that we'd check out then. (Remember this, it becomes relevant later.)

We first went to see a seven-story stone pagoda dating back about a thousand years to the Silla dynasty. Then, as the tourist center had recommended, we walked over to the river, which, blockaded by dams, looked more like a lake. Wow. Even in the slightly drizzly morning, it was stunning. Mountains in the background, clear shimmering water... I looked out on the scene and thought, "I cannot believe I didn't make it out of Seoul for six months. Korea is fucking BEAUTIFUL."

Tomorrow (or today, I guess, as it's after midnight): the biggest dam in Korea, women hiking in three-inch spike heels, a throwdown with a Korean ajuma (a feat, I tell ya!), ostriches running free, more really nice people, and a stunningly painful green chili pepper.