Alas, winter has struck my little island paradise. It's in the 40s and 50s, and the wind is strong, and I know everyone in the northern part of the States is sending a big old "kiss my ass" in my direction. We did have our first bit of snow the other day, but none of it stuck. Despite the temperature for winter being a bit higher here, it has the same effects. The bright green island of the summer turned to beautiful oranges and reds, and those have turned to browns and branches.
As the natural landscape around me has decayed, it so seems that the rest of the world has gone with it. I don't see many good things happening around the world; all of the Facebook posts and news stories are dismal. I need some good news, people! The days are shorter, a bit of the old seasonal affective stuff is kicking in, and I'm not sleeping nearly as well as I had during the brighter months. It's more difficult to get away from campus, in part because it's tough to ride a motorcycle very far in freezing temperatures.
Despite all of this, life is still going pretty well. I've been doing a lot of cooking, and I'm trying to perfect my first strain of homemade barbecue sauce, a sweet/spicy combination. We will see how it plays out as I continue to try to perfect it. The boys really enjoyed the first batch and have been asking me for more!
One of my friends here and I went on a whole day adventure this past week on my days off, and it was definitely the refresher I needed to make it through to Christmas break at home. We went first to get coffee, then found a Chicago hot dog place, then went to a beautiful waterfall on the beach, then went to an awesome art museum (the Bonte Museum), which coincidentally was modeled after the Pulitzer Foundation in St. Louis. It's such a small world sometimes. It really blew my mind that this place could have any connection to my home, and I found two in the same day in the form of a hot dog and a Picasso.
Exactly two weeks from today, I will be on a plane to Los Angeles. I will hopefully be seeing my dear cousin Liz Buhn, which will be a nice holiday treat! I can't wait. This week's hurdle with the boys has been personal space. They don't seem to get it. They're fascinated by the fact that I have hair on my arms and face, and they constantly want to touch it. They are amazed that I have a belly, so they constantly poke it (talk about a motivation to diet after Christmas...). I've had to get a bit stern with them in telling them that it's inappropriate to hang on me, and I'm not really sure that it's gotten through entirely.
I scheduled a trip to Japan for February, and a roadtrip around the Korean peninsula for March. I'm pretty pumped for both. In Japan, I'm flying into Tokyo, and hoping to do a few days in Hiroshima as well to satisfy my WWII historian cravings. I will most likely be flying solo for that trip, so that should be interesting! The esteemed Michael Chu and I are going to take the road trip in March, and we're flying into Seoul, doing a DMZ tour, and then getting the car and driving all over. It should be a lot of fun. Looking forward to traveling more lightly for these two trips and taking it easy.
I'm bringing home a lot of Korean goodies to share with everyone! Looking forward to seeing friends and family soon. Have a great week.
-Ryan
No comments:
Post a Comment