Tuesday in Seoul

My time here is measured in people visited rather than places visited, the way you'd expect when you come home. I came home quite late last ninght, and so woke up late to a phone call from my friend Yura, and scurried out soon afterwards to meet her. We met at the newly uncovered Chonggye stream, which was cemented over a couple decades ago. About four years ago, it was decided that the overpass following the waterway through the city should be destroyed and the stream uncovered again. It was a radical idea, but the somewhat dictatorial mayor pushed it through, and now it has become a beautiful slender oasis through Seoul, with rushes growing on the sides of the banks, and two cement walkways flanking the waterway for its length. The businesses that were eventually removed to effect this put up a fight, but people are now saying that the mayor should run for president -- which is what he is planning to do.

Yura got married last month to a friend she's known for 9 years, whom she dated for a few years, whose heart she broke when she broke it off, and for whom she suddenly developed feelings last year around when I saw her last. In the intervening 11 months, she had a talk with him that wasn't very satisfying, she went to Canada for a long-planned graduate degree, they talked some more, reached an understanding, she moved back to Korea, and they got married. And she looks absolutely marvelous and happy. At 36, she's got no illusions about marriage or herself or her new husband, and rather than becoming someone different, it's like she brought something to her life that has made it more full and rich. It was lovely to see her.

She also made an appointment for me at her hair stylist, which she has done for the past two years, and tomorrow I go for my annual hair cut and perm. Hee!

In the evening, I went with my dad to see my cousin Jung-ho in the hospital, after his surgery this morning. My grandmother had slept there last night, and she was there when we got there. I always feel a little tongue-tied around my cousin, since he speaks less English than I do Korean (which isn't much), but we got to talking and laughing when his sister Jung-un arrived, who is more fluent in English, and with whom I can speak a jumble of English and Korean. We stayed there a little over two hours. I told them about impending babies in my life (not mine! other people's), went through Jung-un's purse and tried her lip gloss (Bobbi Brown -- very nice), examined each other's phones (Jung-ho's can play music, take pictures, launch nuclear missiles, and make toast, among other things), talked about this or that, sometimes sat silently, and generally spent the kind of time you spend with family.

I think Jung-ho, who is a year and 9 months younger than I am, will be fine (knock on wood). My older cousin is undergoing surgery for something more serious tomorrow, but in a hospital farther away.

I'm in Seoul once a year, and have come this year during a week where two of my cousins are in the hospital. What are the chances? Dear lord, I hope they're both okay.