Worlds Collide

For those whose lives are sad enough not to include a serious batch of Seinfeld, let me explain the worlds collide theory. Your life is made up of individual worlds. In middle school, you had your family world, your school friends world, maybe a church friends world, and maybe (who wouldn't?) your bocce club friends world. When a friend from bocce club came over for dinner with the family, worlds collided.

This week, I am thrilled to say, my Chesterton world has collided with my Busan world. Lainy, an old friend from ages past, has been the first person from the old homestead to make the trip out east. It’s not covered wagons anymore, but a 13-hour plane flight plus layovers and subsequent hops has been enough to keep most people at bay. But not Lainy!

Jetlagged out of her mind, she’s allowed me to drag her to all my favorite Busan places. So far she’s been half-drowned in seaspray (and rain. It hasn’t stopped raining since she got here), splattered by spicy soup (it’s hard to eat with chopsticks), and sexually harassed by a dirty old Korean man (you don’t have to worry about theft in Korea, but the ahjusshis are hazardous).

But she’s still here! Sleeping, that is, because her body doesn’t know what time it is here in the future, and by the time it does, it’ll be time to fly back and join the past again. In the meantime (time, time, time), I love showing off all three Korean words that I know and feeding her hoddeok. Worlds are colliding, and it feels good to have a little slice of home.

Tough cookie.

The Art of Hoddeok

Pre-soup-splatter

Rain on the camera, coffee in the cups

Coffee's great! (also, it is the reason I
can't fall asleep right now...)

Worlds Collide