June 20, 2009

I have been reminded by several that I haven’t written since May, and now that I look back, I realize I wrote about rain. Well, we’ve had lots of beautiful days since then that I have crammed packed with work and doing stuff on the weekends, but here I am ready to write again, and would you believe it has rained all day?

Jangma, also known as the summer monsoon season, starts tomorrow, so I guess Mother Nature was just giving us a foretaste of things to come. It rained hard most of the day and let up to a soft mist by nine o’clock this evening. How do I know? Well, because I was out in it almost all day!

Yep, no more hibernating, reading books, making soup, and watching old movies on TV. No, siree. Dee Ann came by early declaring she would kill for an American Farmer’s Breakfast. Since I read anything and everything I find in English including sidewalk menus on my way to work every morning, I knew just the place. I swear it’s an I Hop in disguise, even down to the tootie fruitie waffles. We had eggs, bacon, tater tots, and French toast sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar and strawberry jam somehow stuck inside.

Then we walked in the rain–did I mention I have a new umbrella?–to a huge appliance store and found the radio I have been looking all over Seoul for—and I got it at a discount. Now I am a happy camper. Seoul has a few good English radio stations with news, weather, talk, and all kinds of music. I just like having a radio on.

Back at home to some internet researching, hanging up the clothes I washed this morning–that will probably take a few days to dry–reading a few chapters in Song of the Lark by Willa Cather–a really good book that I am underlining and writing in the margins to pieces because there is so much I don’t want to lose–and an afternoon nap–nothing like a nap when it’s raining outside, Dee Ann and I went looking for the Seoul Arts Center and the National Center for Korean Traditional Performing Arts Theater.

I had read about a performance on the Haegeum, a two-stringed fiddle, that I have heard only in accompaniment to other instruments, so was anxious to hear it played by a master all by itself. I did the research on line and in the newspaper for the 5:00 performance. We had been to a traditional performance at this theater several months ago, so I felt confident I could find it from the subway stations and all the maps, etc. All this would have been fine except I researched the wrong theater and the wrong performance. I needed to go to the Namsan Village Theater. Instead I got us to the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Theater and a whole different program. I kept wondering why nothing looked familiar! You wouldn’t believe how many times we stopped and asked directions. Even tried to take a taxi once–and we were only four or five blocks from the Center–and the taxi driver just kept shrugging and saying (I think) he didn’t know where it was. Hmmm, he could have been saying, “Stupid Americans! I’m not driving you four blocks straight ahead!”

Finally, we found it. Did I mention it was raining the whole time? This was a magnificent performance. I think it was providential that I once again got lost. The costumes, the music–everything from folk to contemporary–the dance, the singing–it was an hour and a half of relaxing, almost meditative, pleasure. The last group was a folk percussion ensemble of about ten men, all with small drums, who did a kind of energetic circle dance. The thing that made them different from anything I had ever seen before were the tight fitting beeny hats with what looked like car radio antennas on swivels attached at the top, and attached to the antennae were long white streamers. So they could dance, beat their drums, and twist their heads and the streamers did their circular dances in the air. It was wonderful! Quite a sight! And they were all having so much fun with their drum beating and dancing and head tossing and laughing, that so were we. They reminded me so much of the Morris Dancers in England–bright costumes, dancing, and sheer pleasure.

It was pouring down rain when we got out of the theater, and still raining when we got out of the museum store. I wanted a CD of the contemporary performance on traditional instruments called Prelude to Morning, but couldn’t find it—-so I bought something else!

But wait, the best is yet to come.

On the way back to the sub-way station Dee Ann said she was hungry and really wanted Italian food. We had passed a small Italian place in our meandering trying to find the theater, so we did some back-tracking and found the place, The Homey: small, intimate, and smelling very Italian.

We opted for the house special dinner menu which was soup, antipasto, beef tenderloin, dessert, and coffee, all for 35, 000 won, about $30.

I have died and gone to heaven! I have eaten beef–really good beef—beef cooked medium rare to perfection. I still can’t believe it. That is the first American style beef steak I have had since November! But let me start at the beginning. The house red wine was perfect–so I had two glasses. The soup was a creamed red bean–delicious. The antipasto was seared tuna steak covered in roasted sesame seeds and topped with a large grilled mushroom. Actually, I thought that was the beef tenderloin, (what can I say, the lights were dim and it has been eight months!) so I was savoring every bite and expecting dessert when the waiter brings out this beautiful, six to eight ounce beef tenderloin sitting on a bed of sauteed zucchini-tomato-onion and topped with fried, thinly sliced pumpkin. Oh, my gosh. Now I really did take little bites to make the magic last. Dessert was the creamiest ever cheese cake served with strong coffee. Sigh. I have written all this down so I can go back and relive those flavors. But then, I plan to go back.

By the time we got out of the restaurant and our two hour meal, the rain had just about stopped. The subway ride was quick. The walk home to my apartment didn’t take too long. And now I am writing all this down. A nice rainy day.