Weekends in the City

I didn't make it to the beach this last weekend. Instead, I went to Seoul; had planned to stay one or maybe two nights and then head to the beach for the rest of my 4 day weekend. But I ran into a friend in Seoul I didn't expect to see and ended up staying 4 nights. It was very strange because I found myself actually enjoy Seoul, specifically Itaewon. Itaewon is an area in Seoul built up to meet the desires of the American base nearby. Therefore, it has lots of western bars, restaurants and shopping. I ate Mexican and Thai food. I met people from Algeria, South Africa and Egypt. Maybe I enjoyed it more this time because I actually partook of the daylife. I went to a bookstore with only English books and bought 2. Read one of them that day in a coffee shop and the other one I finished Wednesday night, lol, some things never change. So many people in that area speak English too, it makes it so easy and comfortable to shop and go places. I think it may have been the first time EVER in my life that city life appealed to me. One of my co-teachers said it reminded her of Chicago. Well, I guess I have always kind of fantasized about living in a city and having a home in the country too (on the coast of course), but no city has ever made me feel like I feel when I have that fantasy. This past weekend though, Seoul felt nice. I still don't think I would REALLY want to live there. For example, my friend that I ran into has a car now and we went for a drive. I remember relaxing to the music and feeling good and then suddenly yearning for a freeway, suddenly wanting to feel the wind in my hair and getting panicky at the thought that we would have to drive and drive and drive and maybe we still would be stuck in that cramped stop and go city. So, you know, I probably still need that beach house to be able to do the middle of one of the biggest 3 cities in the world. I am kind of looking forward to visiting the city again soon. We'll see. In the meantime, maybe I can get to the ocean this coming weekend...