Monday, May 3, 2010

May eye?


Please press the "play" arrow before continuing to the entry; honestly, it's the best thing on here.




Saturday was May Day, and if Chandler from Friends had been here, he'd'a said, "Could the day be any more glorious?" Here comes the sun and I say it's all right.

The running/biking/walking path; Alice Park is to the left, my apartment in front of the LG building.

After what feels like weeks of wet windy grayness, it was in the upper 60s and ever-so-sunny. I went for a 45-minute run in the late morning and was so full of vim, vigor, and vinegar that right after my shower (which was requested by the neighbors after the 45-minute run) that I decided to walk the 40 minutes to Yangjae Station to start my would-be shopping expedition. On the way, I found the Happy Family Festival in Alice English Park, which is a short jaunt from my apartment. There were families picknicking, kids playing soccer, babies being nibbled on by dogs and vice-versa... it was great. Koreans can be a dour lot, but there was nothing but smiles anywhere.

And I heard a familiar but unexpected refrain; by the time I followed it to its source, I just had time to record the final verse you heard above: Let it Be played on traditional Korean instruments by traditional Korean middle-schoolers wearing the traditional Korean hanboek.

I think that you'd have to agree it's a charming performance; in the state of bliss I was in from the weather, I found it lovely. I saw everything all weekend long with a May Eye: the best stuff was beautiful, the worst was fine. I couldn't have brought myself down if I'd tried. (I didn't try.)

Alice Park and Citizen's Forest Park, a little farther on, were chock-a-block with flowers of every color, the trees full of iridescent magpies and, finally, finally, pink and white and yellow blossoms.

The shopping trip was a dud: the Central City mall was nothing special, the bookstore was ordinary, there wasn't a Home Plus store there as I'd been told, and when I took the long trip to the spot where Google Maps had promised there was a Home Plus, it turned out to be their executive offices.

But it didn't matter, because it was May. I walked home from Yangjae, too. Didn't even want my iPod on, coming or going.

Sunday was more beautiful than the incomparably beautiful Saturday, temps in the low 70s. I ran another 40 minutes-- I really am going to do the marathon and lately there's been a real spring (no pun intended, this time) in my step. Then I showered (by public demand) and walked to Yangjae again, iPodless again.

The locals like their flowers.

This shopping trip was also a washout; the dollar store at Yangjae didn't have any of the four things I went looking for, and on the spur of the moment I took the long subway trip to Itaewon, where What the Book had always had Runner's World magazine until the one time I finally decided to buy it...

But it didn't matter, because it was May. Well and truly spring at last. And, after the subway ride, another 40-minute walk home in the sun and the warmth and the breeze..

I suppose it's (yet another) defect of mine, that my mood is so dependent on the weather. (That would certainly help explain why, living in Ithaca, I was so grumpy for the first 41 years of my life.) I'm beginning to think I'll need to retire someplace sunny but not humid; I need to live outside and not sweat to death. But that's for another day. Just for the weekend, it was nice to be someplace where even the buildings spring up and sway in the spring breeze...

This is not a Photoshopped picture; it's straight out of my camera.

Who knows? Maybe we'll have a lot more lovely weather. Spring hopes eternal.

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