N Seoul Tower

I was going through my picture folders and I realized that I never posted about my visit to N Seoul Tower a few weeks ago. [Not that I'm running out of things to blog about - much to contrary - but because I want to cross it off my "done" list and move on to other things.]

I went to N Seoul Tower on what has to be the prettiest day I've yet seen in Seoul. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, a recent rain had just washed the city clean and so - in short - it was perfect. The tower is located on top of a small mountain in central Seoul (Namsan) so although it only measures a little over 236m (777ft), it is in reality 479.7m (1574ft) above sea level. Which is not too shabby. Needless to say, the view is incredible. Plus, as the pictures below can attest, it's just about the greenest place in the area.

It was a normal touristy day except that the observation tower - not shown - just about broke my heart. Two week into my stay in Korea I was suddenly surrounded by glass windows labeled with world cities - New York, Washington, Mexico D.F., Santiago de Chile, Bogota - along with their distances. Oh, such distances. You never feel so homesick until someone throws in a statistic telling you just how far you are from your loved ones!

Still, the views were a nice enough way to combat my first bout of homesickness. The churros, too, helped. ^^

I am much too new to be this busy...

... and far too lucky for my own good. ^^ On Friday I celebrated my first month in Korea. On the day in question - May 22nd - my coworkers took me out but I've been a busy beaver all week:
* Tuesday I had dinner and drinks with Jae Sik;
* Wednesday I had curry with Connie [which, incidentally, is really fun to say];
* Thursday I met up with Hauen for a little chess;
* Friday was traditional Korean barbeque (bulgogi) and way, way too much soju with my coworkers as well as my Jirisan departure;
* Saturday and Sunday = Jirisan!

So, in sum, it's been a good week for a newbie. ^^ All other things aside, doesn't this just look delicious? Because it is, oh it totally is.

Small-city Seoul?

It pays to be blonde in a small world, I suppose. Today, after only three weeks in Seoul - and not even in Seoul proper, but in the satellite city of Anyang - I randomly ran into somone I know. A girl I met a week prior halfway across the city. I know it's not earth-shattering, it's not incredible, but to me it's interesting.
Suddenly this city of 20 million seems a whole lot smaller. I could get used to that. ^^

What a Difference a Year Makes

I am, as always, getting behind in blog posts - it's just too hard at times to both live life and accurately record it - but I cannot let a day like yesterday pass without at least trying to tell you a little about it.
Yesterday was, simultaneously, Childrens' Day in Korea and Cinco de Mayo in Mexico. Because of the former it was a holiday here but because of the later I cannot help but think how much things have changed for me in a single year.

2008: A year ago, as this blog itself shows, I was in Mexico itself, celebrating Cinco de Mayo with Humberto, Allain, and Remy in Guanajuato, the heart of Mexican independence.

2009: This year I was half a world away in Seoul, Korea playing frisbee, drinking soju, and eagerly anticipating 2000 won tacos by the Han river with new friends.

Forget, for just a minute, the worries of the world. Forget the wars, the famine, the strife. I know I am the luckiest man in the world, but try to see the world as I see it. As a place of infinite possibilities, a big, beautiful world full of sunshine and laughter.

I know I am lucky, so unbelievably lucky, but I wish everyone could see what I see.

PS Damnation, I am definitely getting more sentimental in my old age...

A Picture Shows A Thousand Words; Maps Are Even Better

I like maps. I like maps for a lot of reasons – they have a bad habit of revealing more about their makers than their subjects, for one – but among the simplest is this: maps show distance and to me, the would-be traveler, distance is the same as progress. Take the map below: it shows you, in a way, how I just progressed.



From my parent's house in Florida to my new one in Pennsylvania (with numerous Virginia social visits in between), this map covers a lot of distance and maybe, just maybe, a little progress. Having officially competed school – the ceremony (which I did not attend) took place just before Christmas and my degree is supposedly in the mail – this map shows my next milestone: my first job. What it does not show is that, in addition to being absurdly cold in this frozen tundra, from here on out I am also employed as the Managing Director of a start-up creative arts nonprofit in Allentown, PA.

This is all equal parts terrifying and exhilarating; wish me luck!

The Books The Carried Me Through

For better or for worse (and trust me, there is a lot of "worse" - English lit. was scarce resource at some points), this was my reading list from the Rio Grande to Aruba.

The Power and the Glory
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
A History of Latin America
The Metamorphosis
Love in the Time of Cholera
Slaughterhouse-Five
Foundation and Empire
The House on Mango Street
Far From the Maddening Crowd
Lapham's Quarterly (War)
La Divina Comedia
The Luncheon of the Boating Party
Relato de un náufrago
The Teahouse Fire
Newsweek Special Edition (July 2008)
The Economist (June 2008)
Barrel Fever and Other Stories
Into Thin Air
Light a Penny Candle/ The Lilac Bus
The Liar's Club
The Innocent Man
The Good Earth
The Path Between The Seas
Cien años de soledad
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Longitude
Sailing Alone Around The World
The Agony and the Ecstacy
The Idiot
The Pillars of the Earth

Some things just never go away

This is the second time in as many months I've been headed toward a sailboat and, likewise, the second time I've felt like this. I guess I never mentioned it before - things just got away from me, I suppose - but damn I miss my dad.

8-20

I cannot remember the last time I felt this good, this happy, this complete. I climbed Maderas today, and frankly the eight-hour uphill hike has left me both mentally and physically exhausted. Which is fantastic, really. It´s the kind of bone weariness you only feel after some extreme exertion, and coupled as it is with the feeling you get of accomplishing some long-ago-imagined task... well, it´s perfection.
More than that, it´s the surest sign yet, as I nestle into my hammock on the side of a dormant volcano, that the absurd direction my life is currently heading in might actually be the right one.

The irony of this kills me. Well, almost - my cold is doing the rest.

After more than four months in Mexico, four weeks of travel and midway through my self-imposed odyssey, I find myself in a place that reminds me so much of Doctor’s Inlet, of home, that it’s almost overwhelming. Let me explain: after two lovely, if uneventful, days of moderately successful ¨water therapy¨ in Flores, I decided today to relocate south, to the largest of Guatemala’s lakes, Lago Izabal. Which is all well and good, but what I didn’t know before I arrived is that Lago Izabal has an outlet on the Caribbean Sea and is therefore the safest place in the region for boaters to wait out hurricane season. Thus, as I sit here, thousands of kilometers from home, I am nevertheless reminded intensely of it, surrounded as I am by [largely American] boaters of all stripes (and even jet skis!) and enjoying a view not unlike that of my dock at home. So, given all that, and given my cold, which has steadily worsened,* as well as a long-delayed bout of homesickness that has set in with Kim and Kristen gone, I have to say, as sad as it is, today I miss home more than ever.

* More water therapy is clearly needed.

Letter Home

This is the best approximation I can present of the current state of Frankel Affairs, in its entirely, from a letter home:

"I've been on the road for a few weeks now - Kim, sadly, is already on
her way back to the States I believe - but my frantic pace has finally
eased up long enough to sit down and right this letter. Kristin,
needless to say, is relieved to have the break. ^^ Things are almost
exactly as they should be: after a few wonderful days with Kim and her
friend Amy in Mexico City and Oaxaca [both of which were spectacular
in so many ways], Kristin and I have finally made it the point in my
journey which brings us closest to Florida - the Yucatan. So close and
yet so far. I'm on the northwestern side of the Peninsula, in the
small town of Celestun with some friends who live right on the beach.
It's almost idyllic: although so many things have changed since
leaving Monterrey (even the language; I hear more Mayan words every
day), the beer is still cold and the beach is gorgeous. Consistency is
nice, in that regard. It's nice to have the break, to be honest, to
sit back and reflect, to digest rather than experience for a few days.
The ruins as Palenque in the state of Chiapas were beautiful, for
example, but in many ways its only now, out of the heat and in
retrospect, that I can begin to truly appreciate it. Unfortunately,
I'm doing a lot my reminisces by way of memory because some theft
issues have left me without my laptop, cellphone, or camera. Don't
worry, I am perfectly fine, they were simply lifted from my bag when
it was out of my possession and I'm left with little recourse but, of
everything it's the photos I miss most of all. Even now, only a day
after the fact, I'm not angry, just disappointed and a little sad.
They were my lifelines back home and now I feel a little more adrift
that ever. I'll be replacing them when I can, so in the long run I
think little will be changing, so there we are: I am, if anything,
only temporarily at sea. Bad news aside, Mexico is amazing and perhaps
the reason I'm dealing with everything so well. Indeed, my classes are
over, the grades in, and with a little bit of paperwork I'll have my
Master's in December so, as I work my way south, everything is as it
should be in that respect, too. It's amazing, really. I've seen so
much already and fallen so much in love with this country (thieves
aside) that the distance between here and Costa Rica inspires far more
eagerness than trepidation."

So that's it. That's where things are. Sadly I have no exciting pictures or even good stories* for you today, but wherever you are I hope all is well.

* For that, I think, you have to be the one buying the beer... ^^

How can you go off track without a track?

I realized something wonderfully simple last night while talking to my friend Jenny: in less than a week I'll be done with my classes. I'll still have a few months before my Master's processes but, come July, the formal "education" portion of my life will be over. That means from here on out I get to define success - and I have some strangely wonderful rubrics, let me tell you.

I couldn't be less afraid afraid to tell you I'm just getting started