February

February 1

There is cake and there is coffee. I read Bourdain and have more coffee. We ate eel from the charcoal grill last night. Eel and soju. Fatty proteins and alcohol. I don’t drink much these days, soju causes headaches and I prefer my early mornings fresh. Grilled Korean eel is a favourite meal of mine though. Quite surprising as I had never been too fond of the Dutch smoked eel, paling. I’ll have a Dutch herring, or deep-fried cod (‘kibbeling’) any day, but eel, no. Here though, it’s a treat. I turn 40 and hence the treat. I don’t know how to feel about birthdays anymore. Now that I’m passed the age of childish birthday excitement which I experienced well into my twenties, I could roll on into feelings of depression over growing seniority (“it’s downhill from here”, “the best lies behind”), but that’s not what I feel. Friends and family send me messages, most of which are lovely, truthful and a joy to read, but there are also messages that show up under exactly the same message dated a year ago. Or worse, two years ago. Should I embrace the anniversary, sit down and think of all the things that happened since I was added to the ever-growing world’s population back in 1983? Or better be somber, dwelling over physical agonies and predictions of my dystopian senior years?

I don’t know how to feel about birthdays anymore.

We eat the seaweed soup that is traditionally served to women during pregnancy and after delivery. The tradition has extended to birthdays. There is a restaurant that serves the soup with various ingredients (meat, fish, clams). It’s located in the basement of one of those skyscraper office buildings, not too far away from where we live. Restaurants in office buildings typically serve good quality food, as there clientele, all the office staff from the floors above, is around for lunch every day. Returning clients are key here, and between 11.30 and 1 the restaurants in the tower’s basements are buzzing with team meetings over lunch, the quality of the food has to be on point. Weirdly though, we take the escalator to the basement and find all restaurants completely dark today, lights off. All seems closed and I’m already on my way back up the escalator when she says they’re not closed, just unlit. There is renovation work being done on the electricity of this floor, during lunch time on a Tuesday. If ever there is a worst moment for darkness. And on closer inspection, indeed, there are people inside eating their lunches, hidden in the dark. It reminds me of a bar job I had in a hostel in Amsterdam years ago, and of my nightly cycle home along Artis, the zoo. The eyes of undefined animals lighting up behind the fences in the midst of night. Little lights moving around with invisibly dark faces.

We set out earlier to eat the seaweed soup and don’t want to change course and therefore decide to join the faceless eaters. We let the darkness absorb us. It’s one of the weirder eating experiences I have had in my long-lived 40 years so far. The soup is delicious, as always. Taste requires no lighting. Our conversations are completely off though. Certain words require light apparently. We don’t touch the side dishes in the middle of the table, as they appear to be too far off in the darkness. We eat, we pay, and we smile on our way up on the escalator. Back to the light, back from the secret world that is the dark, unlit seaweed den below Jongro Tower today. The headache is gone. Seoul’s very windy. It’s time for another coffee.

February 2

After 2666’ing the month of January, I find myself winding down with lots of light material, probably considered pulp fiction by many. I have a thing for questionnaires in magazines, on blogs, disclosing personal details of celebrities, their likes and dislikes. One of the things it evokes is me filling in the same imaginary questionnaire. What’s the first thing I eat when I arrive in Amsterdam? If not yourself, who would you like to be? What’s my favourite 90’s tv show? There’s a questionnaire in a Dutch magazine where authors are asked literature inspired questions. Proust or Hemingway, who do you pick? Which classic are you ashamed not having read? There’s a table along the Seine, which book character would you like to have dinner with? Reading the answers, and their wide knowledge of literature classics makes me question my own capacity to keep on reading these epic masterpieces. Having read 2666 left me empty, drained of energy and unwilling to jump into anything of serious substance. I remember reading Grisham for weeks after finishing Crime and Punishment. That can’t be right, can it?

Kitchen Confidential is a great release button. I moved to a book on train travelling in India after closing Bourdain, finding inspiration for future India travels. I watched several tv documentaries, one of which comes highly recommended: ‘Their Lives and Magic’ on Laurel and Hardy. Not only is it a joy to watch the timeless comedy of Stan and Ollie, but the L&H connaisseurs and fans telling the duo’s story between clips are almost even funnier. The weirdest collection of badly dressed, overweight, purple-faced American and German comedians and actors appear to speak on the famous comedy act, their lives and how ‘they changed the world of comedy, movie and mime’ all by themselves.

I binge-listened all Beatles albums in chronical order over the weekend while having several rolls of 35mm film developed. Laurel and Hardy, the Beatles, analog photography; the body was born in 1983, but the mind seems stuck somewhere well before that. I am always childishly excited over developed film, even though the pictures seem not to hold anything special on deeper inspection. It’s just the joy of finishing 36 clicks over time, bringing the film to the store, the long wait for the results to show up online, remembering that forgotten scene from months ago, the joy of a strange light flare crossing a picture. To close I’m adding ‘Quartet of Office Men Crossing’, shot nearby Namyeong Station in Seoul. When? I don’t know exactly, but looking at the short sleeves, I’d say May 2022.

February 3

Listening to two podcast hosts discussing the impact of AI bots entering the field of education, I’m trying to form an opinion as to whether this is harming us. Humanity, kids in school, my nephews once they are supposed to start thinking independently. On the grander scheme of things going wrong already, I don’t feel this is a topic that needs separate care. Just the fact that we can’t grasp AI and that we’re freaked out of potentially losing control to bots and whatever other intelligent non-human beings, seems weird to me. It seems to me that humans proof to be the most destructive creatures to date, and with a little luck things may well improve when we hand charge to machines. A leap of faith. It may be a laugh.

In high school there were rules for the use of calculators and dictionaries during class, and it seems those are not only no longer a point of discussion, their relevance has absolved entirely. Accepting the impact of AI into the world education, university, and knowledge (with all its flaws!), may create the opportunity for humans to work on wisdom for the next couple of decades. Switching the needle from living to work and the continuous rat race for success, growth, and moremoremore to working to live and the space of mind to sit still every now and again, read a little, eat well, listen to others instead of waiting to talk. Actually improving the quality of our shared lives.

With this thought in mind I decided to ask the AI for a 20-minutes writing prompt, my first venture into the space of the unknown. Albeit an easy one for the machine, I have to give it what is due. It didn’t disappoint! Screenshot below of the conversation we had. I’ll work on the prompt later today, or early tomorrow!

February 4

It had been one of those late November mornings in New York. Schizophrenic weather he thought. A clear blue sky that clings to long lost summer days, a glittering bright sun reflecting off New York’s high rise, bringing no comfort, and an icy wind blowing in from the ocean, snaking underneath the Verrazzano, past Ellis Island and creeping up, first on land and then on the people’s bones. He’d managed to spend just over an hour with his friends this morning. 20 minutes in the apartment, 10 on the street and the remainder in a crowded M&M’s store on Times Square. Bachelor parties. He just couldn’t. They lured him in months ago, a bad idea lubed in wodka for easy digestion. His expectations only dropped since that night in the bar and they’d reached absolute zero when they landed on Newark airport and he was asked to wear a neon green t-shirt with a comic print upfront and his name on the back. Bachelor parties.

Knowing full well that he wouldn’t be able to live through another of these alcohol submersed days, listening to his friends outdoing each other in the art of saying nothing with too many words, he sneaked out unnoticed, through a side door of the M&M’s store. He made his way west on 48th Street without a plan and turned left when reaching the Hudson. Unaffected by the wind, almost embracing the chill, he walked the whole 4 miles south, Green Day on his earphones, phone on flight mode, until he reached The Battery. A little swipe on his phone brought him back to the life of others. Seven missed calls and numerous messages in the already muted app ‘Big Bruce and the apes in The Apple’. He sent them a picture of Lady Liberty with the text “I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies” and made his way over to the Staten Island Ferry terminal.

A man with a plan, Jack decided to spend the next hours, hidden from the wind, touring the ferry up and down to Staten Island. Scribbling his notepad, recalling the adventures from when he still had his magic. The magic to take matters in his own hands at any moment, the magic to follow his dreams, the magic to always avoid the big piles that were thrown in front of him. Those magical five-minute flips as he called them. Flipping life to the unburnt side of the pancake.

It been twenty or so minutes into the first stint towards Staten Island. Not a word was written, but not to worry he thought. The hard sunlight fell in wonderfully through the windows, on the orange plastic chairs. The onboard speakers creaked, announcing the arrival on the other side. “All passengers are kindly requested to leave the ferry upon arrival. Passengers are not allowed to stay on board and return immediately. All passengers have to leave the ferry.” His plan of staying on board for hours was gone in an instant, gone with the wind, the spell broken. He laughed cynically, his fate seemed sealed. A big pile of shit was his to climb this weekend. If only his five-minute magic…

February 5

There are few things that can tick me off when running. Of all possible states of being, running might be the state in which I’m most at ease, most comfortable with whatever happens to me. One needs to try hard to affect my running emotions, to influence the inner happiness that goes hand in hand with an increased heartbeat and deeper breath intake, with the rhythm of feet hitting the pavement. It’s Friday evening and I’m running with my friend Spiros. We haven’t seen each other in a while, he travelled home to Greece for the holidays, there’s a lot to talk about. Spiros is a serious runner, he is a man with a running plan. He ran a dazzling 2.45 marathon last year, and although he ensures me otherwise, I’m sure we only run together for his recovery runs. That’s fine for me.

We usually meet near his office at one of the streams that lead into the bigger Cheonggye-stream, that ultimately leads into the Han-river. The paths along the streams are the flattest bits one can find here, the pavement is consistent, just pedestrians and, most importantly, no traffic lights to stop a serious runner. Here one can go out on a fixed pace, and run a set distance, to take a training schedule serious. A concept I abandoned a long time ago, but a concept I’m familiar with. We set out for ‘an hour’ along the streams, and that should have given it away. Then and there, I should have known. But I failed to notice. Too excited to run, I guess. Wagging my tail at the prospect of running joy. ‘An hour’ of running is what I tell Inyoung when I leave the house, and she knows this can vary. I can be home in 40 minutes, it can be an hour and ten minutes. And she won’t worry if it turns out to be an hour and a half. ‘Happy legs?’ She knows ‘an hour’.

We run and we talk. Greece, Korea, Bolaño’s 2666, a covid infection, a comfortable pace. Along the basketball pitches, there’s a bridge that sometimes marks a turn for me. Not today. We speak of travel plans, of India and Nepal, of friends back home. A kilometer or so further now. There’s the next bridge, a potential for turning. No, onwards we go. Conversation typically getting more serious as distance increases, more meaning-of-life and the like. I love this part of running, when feet and legs function almost automated. Flow. We breathe and we talk. And then: “Let’s turn here”, he breaks the spell. Exactly 30 minutes. A 180 degrees rotation, on the spot. The one thing that ticks me off.

February 6

In The Great Railway Bazaar Paul Theroux writes “Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.” I’m with Paul. God knows the Dutch railways tried to put me off enjoying train travel with endless hours of waiting on windy platforms, trains too short to carry all its passengers, and unaffordable fares for students, but I still came out on top. Could it be an unconscious reason to relocate as far from The Netherlands as possible? Hit me hard, I’ll keep on moving. (Mental note to re-watch Rocky)

So, team Paul. The practise-for-your-coffin experience of air travel. And breathing in planes. And the before and after disaster in airports. Or travelling by car, with the passenger talking obligation, or solo driving with necessary road focus. And what’s that smell so common for buses? Low quality petrol mixed with invisible vomit in chair cover, and car fumes, and where is the toilet? No, it’s trains for me. Books and windows. Preferably for hours on end.

Fort William to Mallaig. Rain and fog. The smell of rain and fishing nets upon arrival in Mallaig. A little jog along the coastline. Beer with friends after.

Venice to Rome by night train. I was in love. Not with her, just with everything Venice and Rome.

From Amsterdam to Lübeck. I quit and left the corporate gag. Just to travel. The journey to Lübeck holds nothing extraordinary but I may have been my happiest ever self.

The touts at Paharganj and then finding the right train from Delhi to Kalka. Delhi’s main train station, 8.30am on a week day. And after from Kalka to Shimla on the famous toy train. Ordering fresh pakora’s through the window.

Amsterdam to Bodø. The sheer beauty of everything beyond Hamburg. Norway by train should be mandatory in high school. Why Bodø? It’s where the trains stop.

Moving to a country that is practically an island may not be the brightest decision with a passion for train travels. But hey, I could survive a short flight to Beijing, right? And could I make it to Mumbai by train from there? Let me check the maps right away.

February 7

It’s 9.32 pm and I’m toast. I need a shower, and a bed. I’ll read my book although fully aware that I’ll have to read all the pages again tomorrow. I spent the best part of today creating a website for my photography. Or worse, getting to understand the software to create the website another day. I have put this off far too long and have committed to creating something that can be share with others, at least for the foreseeable future. A miserable project. But important. I’ll persist. Tomorrow another two hours. And the day after that. And after that.

For the appointment with immigration on Thursday I prepared all documentation. All this paperwork that will be looked at once, only to be filed in some dusty basement for the next who-knows-how-many years. Such a waste. Printing a stack of personal registration forms from one governmental desk to present it to another. They’re just keeping us dumb, right? The days before visa extension is the one moment a year I believe in conspiracy theories. Davos is far from here, but I’m sure they’re laughing at videos of me, the peasant, shyly presenting my neatly signed documents.

I made granola. I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner. With one beer. I committed to another semester of English tutoring a North Korean refugee. I went out to buy eggs. And a flat-white for her. I wanted to change the bed sheets but didn’t. I didn’t want to run and didn’t. I wrote my morning pages. Unfortunately in Dutch and in unreadable longhand scribbles. A picture of those would have been better for today’s post.

It’s 9.46 now. Am I there yet?

February 8

A good night of sleep, an early rise. Things can look a whole lot different twelve hours later. I read two chapters before dozing off and still remember that Theroux made his way from Lake Van to Teheran, and then to Mashhad, the sacred city, on the north-eastern edge of Iran. Lake Van, the eastern most part of Turkey. A stark reminder of the earthquake devastation in Turkey and Syria. Things can look a whole lot different in the passing of some five minutes.

Last week, January 31st, marked 70 years since the flooding of the North Sea that covered large parts of southern Netherlands, drowning thousands. The traumatic event that further kickstarted the building of the famous Delta Works. 70 years since, the last survivors are still alive. It made for an impressive series of podcast interviews I listened to last week. Hearing these people talk about that night and the day after. Their memories, the trauma of seeing family and friends taken away. One moment they’re there, the other moment they’re no longer. Holding on to a tree is only a lifesaver until the water takes the entire tree.

It’s a psychiatric textbook example of how not to deal with trauma. The almost isolated islands of Zeeland, the ’Zeeuwen’ , Zeeland’s inhabitants, are often characterised as surly. It’s mainly farmlands down there, farmers sticking to themselves, not the talkative types to open up over a Friday night with the boys. And still, to date, it’s one of the most active parts of the Dutch Bible Belt, dozens of orthodox christian communities where the disaster is attributed to punishment of God. No need to be talked about, just repent, repent, repent. Memories? Feelings? Emotions? Just push it as far back as possible. What can go wrong? Listening to these seniors talk on the podcast, I think they’d make for an exceptional support group amongst the rescue operations in Turkey and Syria.

With so many calamities these days being hijacked by conspiracy theorists, I can’t help but notice that tectonic plates colliding seems to have slipped through the conspiracy mazes. How’s that? You can make the earth flat but you can’t think of a reason for people to make continents bounce?

It’s a depressing post again. I’m parking Casals ‘because I think I’m making progress.’ It’s beautiful and deserves more attention! Let’s not just dwell in the ideal of the thought and the expression. Let’s use it more extensively!

February 9

It’s ten to nine when I enter the immigration office for my visa extension. It’s early and quiet. I like my immigration offices just as I like my own house when I wake up. There’s a reception desk on the right, an ATM and the counter to pay visa application fees in the back, and rows of chairs facing a large tv screen filling the rest of the room. On the left side is a large wooden separation, hiding the individual, numbered immigration desks, all manned by women. I can hear the pre-work time morning chatter, the wooden wall looks more secretive than it actually is. Two sides of the separation, two groups of people populating one and the same room. One group somewhat tense and timid, we’re awaiting our trial moment. The other group has little to worry, they know the process, they know very well how today will turn out. And they have coffee.

The clock hits nine, three numbers are called for starters, and mine is amongst them. I’m slightly aroused by the efficiency. I have to bow a little to squeeze under the door post of the wooden wall. In Korea I often enter new spaces in a humble manner, head slightly looking down, paying honour to anyone behind the gate. (I admit that occasionally I find myself bowing to just the pets of a house.) The desks have heavy wooden chairs for visitors with extremely soft cushions. You’d expect something more efficient, something ‘good rates for large quantities’, but the chairs for visitors are surprisingly comfortable. A nasty scraping sound when I pull the chair back – oh right, heavy chairs – it sets my comfort level back a nudge. I greet the lady and apologise for the noise. No response, no reaction. She’s numb. I’m her first applicant of the day, but she’s already numb.

I hand her my passport, my residence card and a carefully prepared stack of paperwork. Neatly arranged, drawn from a new plastic file after sitting down. She gently pushes it back in its entirety. A very narrow gap in the shield between us makes for some weird pushing around of papers, but it becomes clear that this is not how we are doing things today. “Did you bring your passport?” she asks with a polite voice, eyes talking a different story. “Yes, here you are.” “And your residence card?” “Yes, that too.” She then lists every single document of the six I have prepared for her, and asks me to hand them over one-by-one. With an “Everything is here.” she signals what I could have told her (and wanted to!) immediately. You got to love early morning power moves by the authorities.

She stamps the documents, keeps the residence card and points me to another desk. I know the drill, she’s spoken her last words to me a while ago already. I’ll wait at the other desk to pick up my residence card with a newly printed sticker. “Thank you, have a great day!” It’s 9.06 when I leave the immigration office, it’s never been as efficient as today and I wonder if it’s because of her strange, authoritarian behaviour? Am I really getting stupid? I decide not to go home directly, but instead walk towards the palaces, then a little further, into the park that leads up to the city wall. I meet the occasional other walker in the park, most of them in groups of two or three. Koreans are not too keen on walking leisurely by themselves. It’s a typical blue sky, February morning in Seoul, cold, but not too cold. I count my blessings when I see the wall, and think of the lady who thought she knew better than me. I see the city stretch out below, and decide to get two croissants instead of one today. One for me and the other one for me. The immigration lady gets nothing. I know better.

February 10

I’m reminded of a set of books my father bought for me when I was a kid. A box with all Karl May’s Winnetou and Old Shatterhand stories. I’m guessing 8 or 9 books in total. All hardcover, with dark read covers and strange illustrations on it. I devoured those books. Read the series four, five maybe six times. Some of them not too long ago again, just to be reminded what the joy was. Still enjoyed it, even though all very outdated, very inappropriate towards native America, and also I’d never realised the stories were so heavy on spreading the Christian word. My room in the parental house was the only room on the top floor, under the slanted roof. My parents didn’t allow a tv in the bed room, so books made up most of the nightly diet. Often with a light hidden under the blanket, pretending to the outer world I was asleep. I preferred to read the books without the red covers, they looked better naked. I still kept them on though. As book mark but also to judge whether I had made sufficient progress, whether I was past halfway (so I should switch to using the back flap as mark instead – a clear sign of reading progress), and to see if the end of the story was near enough to finish the book that same night. Measuring the progress in a more physical way has always appealed more than using page numbers. I don’t like page numbers, they distract. I agree, marking a book by memory is a recipe for disaster. Hoping the last time the book folded enough and it will now magically open on the correct page. Now I wonder if people make a mental note of the page number? And if not that, then why do books have numbering? For the reader to track progress? Then again, they distract. Or to take notes on another source and refer to the right pages? If so, do these people always read while sitting up at a desk, taking notes?

I too like to use whatever foldable object is near the first time I close a new book. Receipts are not preferred, also I’ll never tear a small part of a big document to use. No, I prefer tickets, or photos, or a day ripped from a tear-off calendar. In front of me on the desk is a Korean dictionary with a book mark sticking out. I pull it out to see what it is, a dictionary doesn’t need a book mark. Ah right, it’s one that was squeezed in my hands by one of the Christian devotees you find here often. I remember leaving the metro station in the crowd, and in a split second, before I could decline, I became the owner of a bookmark that has very graphic animations of what happens to non-believers. There’s the obvious Christ image, crucified, lots of blood. But also a sea of fire with people drowning in it, sheep separated from the Lord’s herds. And there’s the grim reaper and a pastor, backs turned at each other, desperate office men scattered around on the floor. It made me laugh when I received it, it made me laugh just now too. I can’t wait to start a new book to put it to good use.

Closing off with a picture of a guy promising non-believers eternal fire, continuous chats with the devil, a screaming end to a worthless life, 666 and whatnot more. It’s a common sight in Seoul. My favourites also bring a microphone and a speaker set they carry around their necks. The weight of the Lord’s promises.

February 11

Casals’ ‘because I think I’m making progress.’ quote has been on my mind the for a few days now. It reminded another friend of Sonny Rollins. I don’t know much about Sonny but apparently he’s filled with life wisdom, a lot of which quotable. As a novice exploring new fields of interest, obtaining new skills, I always feel the need to go faster, to make more progress in shorter time. In my mind the first bits should be the easiest. Turns out it never really works that way. Language learning is a good example, but I also vividly remember the horrors of starting yoga. And my male friend who talked me into it, compared to whose flexibility I looked like an iron pipe on a neon coloured mat. Building a website is next on the ever-growing longlist of things started, explored and soon frustrated with.

But good news. Two days in, it seemed to have me down and out, the third day I was still down, the ref loudly counting for k.o. But today, an ordinary Saturday, I got up. With help of the ropes, and my left eyebrow is still ripped and bleeding, but I got up. There was Rocky again, hit hard but I keep on moving. The smallest of things yet on a website, one picture and a contact form, but it’s back up.

One single point where one can find me and find out about me. My photography, written stories, Korea, travel and all that’s interesting. I felt the need to build it because I need ‘a thing’ to point people at, like handing a business card. Nothing fancy, it should be simple and plain. Especially on the back end, the creating part. Because even though I love the idea of growing this skill, and the past days have shown I can be persistent, and I can make progress, this will never be a hobby. I think that bit is missing in Casals quote. For something to be so dedicated to, one has to truly love it.

Progress can be tracked at https://www.jitsejager.com. I happily welcome and embrace any feedback. Not only on what’s there that could look better, but also on what’s missing. What would be a great thing to add?

We have a friend visiting and we’re eating Korean fried chicken tonight, with beer and soju on the side. I’ll have an extra glass to celebrate the little victory.

February 12

There is a lady sitting opposite of me on the Ui-Sinseol metro line. It’s an early weekday morning, and we got on in Sinseol-dong together. I always feel this line should better be named the Sinseol – Ui line. Ui is where the mountains are and that’s where I like to be. I can’t think of a reason for people to travel the other direction. The train is filled with travellers who are dressed for the outdoors. From Ui-dong station back to our house is 21 km and it offers some 1,000 meters of elevation, mainly on trails, but with sufficient convenience stores en-route, and spectacular views of the Bukhan mountain range. It’s a perfect just under three hours adventure, lots of climbing but all in relative short stints of climbing.

The lady opposite me is not dressed for the outdoors. Her clothes don’t give away where she’s heading, but her accessories do. She’s wearing one of the bucket hats that are so trendy nowadays among Korea’s fashion followers. It’s beige and covers half her face, hanging loosely in front of her eyes. With a blue face mask covering the bottom half of her face, nothing is left visible but a thin line of skin above the nose and under the eyes. Facial fashion that’s been adopted by many recently, leaving the good old balaclava a clothing item aspired by nudists. The lady has on her knee what seems to be a prayer book of sorts. It’s a printed book, and I think I can distinguish prayers, but all the empty space on the pages is covered with pen scribbles, suggesting the book has been read, studied, and used for many years. With the book balancing on her knee, the lady repetitively, almost nervously taps the page she’s studying with the index finger of her left hand. I can’t see her face, but had it been revealed now, I’m sure she’d be muttering prayers of some kind, following a rhythm dictated by the tapping of her left hand. Interestingly enough in her right hand she holds a mechanical telly counter. One of those counters used to count the amount of people who can still board the next roller coaster ride, or to see how many parking spaces are taken. It’s a blue counter, just as her mask. She clicks often, but not as often as she taps. I’m confused. Not only because my sense of rhythm gets worked up studying two different cadences, but also because WHY? What is she counting? And if the counting were to make sense, then why would she be tapping at the same time at risk of losing track of the right count? And why on the train? At this godforsaken time, it’s 6.15 am! Near the trail head in Ui-dong is a large temple complex, and along the trail several smaller ones, so if she’s counting the prayer equivalent of a buddhist’s 108 morning prostrations, then why not just wait another 10 minutes and do all this in fresh air, with the sun rising over the mountains and no gaping strangers around.

I would like for this story to end with me revealing the reasoning behind the counting and the tapping. Me graciously interfering her spheres and finding the right Korean sentences to ask for clarity. Or for me approaching her and she grabbing my hand, gently pulling it for me to follow her. For us to quietly stroll to the mountain temple of a long forgotten eunuch, where we prostrate together, and then dip ourselves in the icy mountain water of the well next of the temple. But that’s not how it ends. The doors of the train open for the second to last stop, Solbat Park, she picks up the book and slips out, leaving me no time to reach the open doors, even if I’d had the courage for all that. I get off at the next and last stop still thinking about the invisible lady with the prayer book and the mechanical counter and I start my run. The trail crosses Solbat Park in twenty minutes, eighteen if I go fast, and I can only hope we are reunited there…

February 13

There is a lot to love in a good kimchi jjigae, a kimchi stew. The word stew doesn’t do it justice if you ask me. Jjigae holds the perfect middle between a soup and a stew. Stew is what the Dutch use to name their winter potato mashes, and it refers to a dish that has been simmering over a fire for hours on end. Kimchi jjigae is thrown together in minutes and either served boiling hot, or brought to a boil on a gas pit in the dining table. It’s a feisty looking, boiling mix of simple ingredients, pungent smells and comforting flavours. There is always a split second, a deep breath, a gasp for courage before I dig in. And although some manage to fuck it up (too salty, kimchi not sour enough), I usually walk away smiling from a wrestling match with a pot of kimchi. Today was such a day. We had it for lunch after Inyoung’s return from the pilates studio. Again, I needed the second before digging in as the heart said yes but the mind thought ’kimchi at 11.15 in the morning? but you’re a man of bread and cheese!’. But oh damn was it good. They hit the jjigae swing spot just right; the sourness of well-fermented kimchi that screams ‘guts!’, a non-showing-off amount of pork, grand chunks of soft tofu, all not too salty. Simple but bold, overwhelming but comforting. A nice bowl of rice on the side. Dig in!

Younger Koreans don’t eat as much kimchi as the older generations do. Making kimchi at home, although marked an intangible Unesco heritage, has been on decline in recent years. It’s a damned pity. Fermentation of cabbage, pickling of ingredients, it’s a global thing, but kimchi is such a unique aspect to Korean food and culture. Kimjang, the making of kimchi, is done end November, early December, after the harvest of the best cabbages. The creation of the food is one, but since it is commonly done with the entire family, the social importance is key. For us it brings family from outside Seoul back together in my mother in law’s house. They stay overnight as the cabbages need a nightly salt bath before the actual kimchi making. This is a lengthy half day process, and it’s hard manual work, rubbing every single cabbage leave with paste, so there’s lots of complaining and laughter. And when all is done, the first, still unfermented kimchi is eaten with boiled pork and a little alcohol to celebrate the annual laborious task is over. The kimchi made those two days provides a year of fermented delight. Let’s hope this doesn’t get crushed under the capitalist hamster wheel.

I for one solemnly vow to do everything in my capacity to keep national kimchi consumption at the required level.

Ingredients for kimchi jjigae

• kimchi, fully fermented, sold as ‘aged’ kimchi
• kimchi brine
• pork belly or shoulder, with some fat
• tofu
• gochugaru, Korean red chili pepper flakes
• garlic
• spring onions
• soy sauce to taste
• broth (preferably anchovy) or water
• oil for cooking

February 14

When I open the door of the restaurant the swing feels out of tune. It’s a door that’s been opened and closed more often than what the hinges were originally developed for. It’s an unassuming restaurant in the grilled fish alley nearby the Dongdaemun-gate. At ten minutes walk a home game. A little online research tells me the grilled fish alley has been around over fifty years, built during the first high days of Korea’s extreme rapid growth. The area then and now one of the buzzing centers of a city producing, exporting, and creating what is now often called ‘the miracle on the Han river’. I’m assuming the alley is developed for quick, nutritious food intake for the large amount of workers in the area. It is located just off the side from the fashion and clothing markets this neighbourhood is famous for. It’s in these markets where young and old buy their wholesale textile intakes but also to find the newest individual garments and latest fashion trends. And it’s outside, on the street, where all the delivery guys with their scooters gather during work hours, dropping off or picking up textile orders, racing between the markets and the factories in surrounding towns. I’m yet to find a street corner in Seoul where more scooter bikes can be spotted and more tobacco is consumed. Traffic is chaotic as there are no real sidewalks and the street is half taken by street food joints, so called ‘pojangmacha’. Earphones and music are not a wise idea here, it’s alertness level high, a continuous weaving through 360 degree traffic movement.

The grilled fish alley has some ten fish joints lined up on one side, all a visual copy of their neighbour. The right side of the alley offers different diets. Not our choice today. The fish restaurants have a large outside grill, some of them double deck layered, all manned by men and women without eyebrows and thick, leathery skinned faces. There’s soot everywhere and the smoke in the alley is intense! Although all look the same on the outside, Inyoung has a strong preference for one and as today is Valentine, I see no need to try to persuade her to enter another door. The grill in front of the restaurant of choice, the one with the tired door hinges, is taken care of by the same older lady who’s been doing this for decades. Her back bent in a perfect posture leaning over the grill, her eyes covered by plastic protection glasses, she manages the grill like a musical director. Feet standing solid, hands doing the work. The restaurant has five or six different types of fish on the menu, an odd twenty pieces on the grill at all times during lunch hour. She’s always happy to see us, although I can’t help but question her eyesight after decades above a searing hot grill and I wonder if she actually distinguishes people through the thick clouds of smoke. We may well be the latest silhouettes attending lunch.

Inside are two floors, a ground floor with seven tables and chairs and a first floor with the traditional floor seating tables. We opt for downstairs and order a mackerel dish from the grill and a spicy soft tofu special on the side. It’s crowded inside, and the one lady waiting tables, who I’m sure has been running this floor for decades too, always expresses a sense of urgency that leans to panic. The fan that’s supposed to keep the interior fresh, seems to be blowing inward today, the space is covered with the same smoke as outside. The atmosphere is more chaotic than usual, some customers are complaining, but we all stay. We all know the fish will make up for the inconvenience. And so it does. I’m not too impressed with the stew and the side dishes, plenty of restaurants do better. The rice is good but nothing special. It’s just the fish that tickles the senses. It’s just outstanding. It’s cooked to perfection, soft and juicy, easy to separate the meat from the bones. The smokiness blends perfectly with a tiny dip of soy sauce. Clouds clear, smiles appear, chaos remains, bellies are fed when we make our way outside. A slight bow to the lady of the grill acknowledging outstanding taste and then we scramble our way back to a life not covered in smoke.

February 15

It fills me with proud that my profile and resumé still attract sufficient attention to be sent a contract without the unnecessary hassle of interviews, irrelevant questions about an education enjoyed years ago, nor the waiting time involved as someone higher up needs to sign off but is currently on a three weeks spending spree, helicopter trip in Banff. It pains me to say that on my side a question or two remain prior to sending you my bank details and the signed contract.

It would give me a sense of worth, you say. The monthly payment from me to you would give you a sense of worth? It seems to me that the dread you experienced in recent years by corporate slavery, is clear proof of the contrary. The money, though necessary, didn’t bring worth, pleasure or pride. Did it? Possibly the content of the work could have, but (in both our cases) also didn’t. We’re both scarred by the pleasures of a privileged childhood and education that taught us our worths are derived from diligence at work, a career of continuous climbing the slippery ladder of the promoted job title and an ever-growing pay check at the end of the month. But if that were the case then where did all the misery come from, the dread you so often described, the despair you felt on the trains commuting to and from the cubicle?

So, instead, shouldn’t we be talking about you trying to land a job as a library clerk, about how you decided to write the one novel that’s peaking at us from the brinks of your unconsciousness, and about how you have started training Milo to become a future Roland Garros champion, securing sufficient funds for his soon after to retire father? The ideas that don’t hijack your life, but that both support and allow you a life worth living? A life filled with books, and trumpets, and long walks, and empty notebooks. And with coffee. And a family on the couch at home.

Questioning the idea that you have to do something you actually don’t want, springs from an incredible privileged and spoiled background. I’m well aware of that and I can feel guilty to others for it. Still, I rather choose to do the things I really want and try to use them in a way it benefits others, instead of doing the things I don’t want, the things that mostly benefit me.

Did you start reading Freedom From The Known already? You’ll find in one of the first chapters there’s a bit on conditioning. I’m curious to hear what you think of that. Useful or total rubbish?

February 16

My friend asked me whether LeBron James breaking the all-time scoring record in basketball, settles the debate if he or Michael Jordan is the GOAT. I told him I don’t join in the concept of goats. I had told him this before. So I set out to write a little piece on this, but halfway I concluded it was utter nonsense. I don’t do goats and that does not need explaining. And also the text just sucked and I don’t feel comfortable sharing.

Instead here is a clip you have to watch. My favourite of all time (FOAT?), Dennis Bergkamp, true mastery of the ball, a puppeteer with very soft feet, the art that is scoring goals. It’s 9:45 minutes so it should qualify as my ten minute exercise for the day. I watched it twice today. It’s so beautiful, I might watch it another time before going to bed.

There’s the goal he scored for Ajax, about 30 seconds into this video, it’s one of my favourites from him. The double right foot touch, especially the first one where he handles a 35-40 meters pass through the air just before it bounces. Absolute perfection.

Then there’s another one for Ajax, it’s 5.30 minutes in. They’re playing Volendam, I recognise the orange tees. It’s in Volendam, you can see a seagull crossing the view, flying in straight from the IJsselmeer. It’s trying to distract us, but we’re spellbound already. Bergkamp’s first touch is great again, but this time the magic is in the second touch. How do you chip a keeper from 6 yards, when he’s already 5 yards out himself? It’s an insult. We don’t know for certain what happened to the keeper since, but some say he’s still waking up crying for his mother.

Watching this video reminds me of Bukowski’s poem on style.

Style

Style is the answer to everything,
A fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous thing,
To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without it,
To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art.

Bullfighting can be an art,
Boxing can be an art,
Loving can be an art,
Opening a can of sardines can be an art.

Not many have style.
Not many can keep style.
I have seen dogs with more style than men,
although not many dogs have style.
Cats have it with abundance.
When Hemingway put his brains to the wall with a shotgun,
that was style.
Or sometimes people give you style
Joan of Arc had style,
John the Baptist,
Christ,
Socrates,
Caesar,
García Lorca.

I have met men in jail with style.
I have met more men in jail with style than men out of jail.
Style is the difference, a way of doing, a way of being done.
Six herons standing quietly in a pool of water,
or you walking out of the bathroom, naked, without seeing me.

Bukowski and Bergkamp. The last name similarities are easily visible. Wikipedia tells me Bukowski was part of a movement called ‘Dirty Realism’. That seems like the perfect term to characterise Bergkamp on a football pitch. Bergkamp debuted in December ’86 but Bukowski wrote ‘Style’ in ’74. I think we can safely assume he’d have Bergkamp listed between Socrates and Caesar had they asked him to write an updated version.

A funny side note, apparently the term ‘dirty realism’ is dubbed by journalist Bill Buford. After Kitchen Confidential I recommended Buford’s ‘Heat’ should you want to read more kitchen adventures.

Lots of loose thoughts tonight. But I am very happy with my decision to delete the entire first draft, to then just watch the video twice, and now ending up here. I hope you allow yourself the same joy. Don’t come up with some lame excuse about time restraints. If short on time, don’t write your ten minutes, just watch The Non-Flying Dutchman instead.

To do a dangerous thing with style is what I call art.

February 17

Reading your post I’m reminded of a football game I used to play on the personal computer my father bought me sometime in the early 90s. TV time was always restricted, maximum one hour a day and only educational or quality shows. No commercial channels, only public, and no tv in the bedroom. Still I was the first among my friends with a PC. I remember things like MS-DOS, and VGA graphics, and 3.5-inch floppy disks, and RAM memory. I didn’t understand all this then, I don’t understand it now either. With the PC came Prince of Persia – three floppy disks to be alternated while the game progressed – and a game called Blockout, sort of a 3D version of Tetris. And there was the Italy ’90 World Cup game, in which I soon found out it had a cheat, a trick where you ran down the sideline, counted the ‘lawn mown’ stripes on the pitch and then turned infield to shoot from long range, and you’d always score. Fake player names, only 10% of the pitch visible, passing seemingly impossible but still I played for hours. A flat two-dimensional game, the world still unfamiliar with the concept of user experience.

Taking the game online was the next step in my development of designing my own world cups. Before the introduction of the PC I used to kick balls against the roller door of the bike shed in our garden. The door a perfect kids-size goal, I’m guessing a little under 6 feet high, and 8 or 9 wide, the only UX flaw a handle and lock in the door’s center. Some nasty stone garden tiles making up a 12-15 square meter pitch. The latest Mitre ball I was gifted during one of our summer holidays to Scotland – that’s my father making up for the boredom of desolated Scottish campsites. And just me, myself and I kicking a ball, and loudly making up my own World Cup radio commentary. Both winner and loser at the same time. Occasionally balls would end up on the shed, or worse, over the shed in the neighbours garden. Friendly people but never around, and climbing fences wasn’t my strongest feat. The roller door made of metal, hanging somewhat loosely in its (also) metal rails. I can’t imagine the torture I brought upon the neighbours, and with that the shame my parents must have felt.

We lose the joy of these simple pleasures while growing up and growing old. To some extent that’s fortunate, but retaining some of it seems important too. Essential even. Reaching my forties and clearly having started the second half of things, it’s fine that I no longer kick balls against sheds. Nonetheless, it would be wonderful to maintain a little of that childlike joy, the sense of freedom from worrying what others think of us. And it’s therefore that today I think of you (but don’t worry about me thinking of you!) doing your stepovers mid-run and wagging a celebratory finger at the butcher, at the lady in the busstop and maybe even at sleeping Milo. “Pops just won himself the ’24 Olympic Marathon kid…”

February 18

The introduction of Football Couture made for a pleasant start to my morning, and I full heartedly support the idea of a potential comeback. Whether that’s in the cards is completely with you, but if you do, promise me you won’t remove the picture of you and two friends after an intense game of squash with a description that says ‘do not read this’. Leave it where it is, or in case of a very successful comeback, treat it like it’s a museum piece and move it over to the ‘about me’ section. In all seriousness, it’s a great idea for a website, an interesting reason to approach people and I’m sure it’s a pot of gold. Here is a group of people who aren’t always topping the lists of potential interviewees. A group of people so diverse in demographics and in character, but also in mood. Especially in mood. There are the regular pre- and post-game excessive emotions, but then there are the jersey wearers you meet on days no games are played. So proud one wears the team’s colours even on off-days, or maybe especially those days. But then there’s also the sad look, the tracksuit look that says ‘I don’t know anything better to wear today’. The ‘I know it’s an average Tuesday morning in Düsseldorf but I’m still wearing my Olympique Lyon tee’ look.

I am not wearing team jerseys these days, though I have in the past, and did so frequently. There are two jerseys on the shelves here in Seoul, the obvious Ajax relic that I brought because the red and white lies deeper than any other football conviction, and there’s a vertically striped, blue and black Incheon United jersey that Inyoung’s uncle gifted me. He and his wife are Incheon United season ticket holders, and passionate lifelong fans who were even selected to accompany the first eleven pre-game, on their march to glory. The obligatory kids were replaced by eleven of Incheon’s most dedicated supporters, and uncle couldn’t have been more proud. We joined them to the game a few times but haven’t recently. Incheon is west of Seoul, bordering the ocean, it’s windy out there and in, what must have been a fit of temporary insanity, the architect designed a horse shoe style stadium, stands on three sides of the pitch, leaving the one short side in direction of the ocean open, making the stadium uncomfortably windy and chilly. Also the team used to be fighting against relegation every season. I have yet to see them win a game! That being said, they finished fourth last year, a surprise to everyone with an interest in the K-League, and have therefore qualified for one of the Asian cups.

Yesterdays post mentioned the Mitre ball my father gifted me during one of the family holidays we made to England or Scotland. He may have done so multiple times, I remember we would practise passing (especially long arial passes) on beautifully mown stretches of campsite green. My father was the better player of the two of us, he played a decent central defender with a strong head back in the days. When Amsterdam had two or even three professional teams, end sixties, early seventies, the youth teams my dad was on would play warm up matches before the Ajax games, in the Amsterdam Olympic stadium. More importantly for me, my father decided at young age not to follow the families’ lifelong support for Feyenoord. He joined an older neighbour friend to an Ajax game and changed the family’s course.

My school friends and their parents used to go to sunny locations, the south of France or the Italian coast, but because my mom had spent the year after high school in Edinburgh, we always went back to the islands. In hindsight the idea of a campsite with little other guests sounds tempting, a book in hand, size five football near, overlooking the Firth of Forth coastline, somewhere east of Edinburgh but as a teenager it wasn’t exactly where one wanted to be. A great practise developed during these holidays though, and I remember this very fondly, my father would buy me a team jersey selected from the league in the country we visited. We’d sent my mom and my sister off to a book store and find ourselves the local sports store where we would rummage the latest colours of next season’s leagues. This was around the time the teams introduced the idea of a third jersey, leaving me even more choice to wonder. I gained quite the collection over time as my father continued to buy me jerseys long after I stopped joining the family holidays. Apart from a Liverpool-home jersey I gave to a neighbour friend, all thirty-ish jerseys are still in a box in Amsterdam, awaiting a day to be lifted from the musty darkness. To be evaluated once again, to be worn once more (if size allows), to be the time vessels they have turned into by now. I complained often about long walks in rainy Britain, as a teenager should, but I have great memories of those three weeks holidays, and some beautiful jerseys to support those.

February 19

We meet our friends at the exit of the metro station near the restaurant we plan to have dinner in. It’s one of our favourite restaurants but we haven’t eaten there for a long time and we’re both excited to return. The restaurant is located in a scruffy alley off the side street off the street where we meet our friends. The side street is packed with toy stores and during the day is a true children’s paradise made of plastic. Now it’s dark and abandoned at nightfall. An eerie atmosphere envelops us when we enter the street. I walk streets and alleys in Seoul at night all the time and dare to say this street is more eerie than the average. It’s as if the excitement of children shopping for toys today is still caught in the street, bouncing off the roller doors now shut, trying to find its way back home to the original owners of said excitement. The idea of a deserted street and endless amounts of toys hidden behind the walls. Clowns and jokers appear in my thoughts. There’s a curve in the street, about a hundred metres in, we can’t see the end of it, adding to the feel of a something that is up to no good. It’s a great location to shoot a nightly film scare with a protagonist entering on one side, apprehensively walking in the shadows created by irregularly placed street lights, and a group of zombies suddenly turning the curve from the other side.

It’s a really weird street at night.

It’s not what we’re here for though. We’re here for dinner, a little drink and relaxed conversation with friends. The restaurant specialises in baby squid and the menu, vertically printed on paper and stuck to the walls, offers limited options. Restaurants with limited options always appeal to me. Like any human being I form opinions about everyone and everything immediately, but a restaurant that signals to know what I want better than I know it myself, immediately has an edge. I feel as if someone takes charge. ‘You come in, sit down, and we’ll just do what we’re good at. We’ve been doing this for years, and we’re about to show you why.’

The restaurant has four four-person tables in the space between the entrance and the open kitchen in the back, and three two-person tables in a little space, through a small passage right from the kitchen. The restaurant is not crazily popular, no tv programs visiting, no long queues and an hour waiting for a table, but it is always full, and as it’s a Saturday night we anticipate the possibility of being disappointed upon arrival. We swing open the door and are lucky, there’s one table left for us and a wok pan engulfed in flames holds the promise of a dinner night well spent. There is a spicy dish of marinated squid grilled with onions, a squid and scallions stuffed Korean pancake, and a sweet and sour acorn jelly soup served cold with ice and there are several bottles of makgeolli, a Korean alcohol made of the fermentation of rice and other grains that pairs especially well with Korean pancakes. The leftover sauce and onions of the main dish form the base of a heavenly serve of fried rice to close the dinner.

Plans of long runs on Sunday are reconsidered and tweaked as we try to find a bar for more drinks. Motivated by the pleasurable buzz that precedes being tipsy, we demand better support from our phone’s navigation apps. We want beers, and snacks, and we want it now. The buzz is working well but it can’t hold off the cold temperature for too long, bring us somewhere cozy and warm. We end up in a bar on the second floor of a grey building that screams nothingness when we look at it from the sidewalk. It’s operated by two ladies (sisters?), one holds the floor, one holds the kitchen. The smell of stale beer and cigarette smoke welcomes us aggressively. Smoking inside is forbidden in Korea but this bar still has a smoking room and given the smell in the main room and the tiny size of the smoking room, I can only guess how horrible the smoking room experience must be. The nachos we order taste exactly as one would expect from a bar like this, and the beers fall flat before the jug we ordered is placed back on the table, but we’re on high spirits tonight and I can’t wait for the hangover tomorrow.

February 20

A while ago I came across this app that allows me to save articles from the web with one click, and make them show on my ereader. No longer am I forced to immediately read texts that are often too long or too complicated to read on the fly, and no longer do I have to save links somewhere on the laptop for future reading. Solutions to this problem are probably available for years, but have never crossed my paths. Over time, sometimes days, sometimes weeks, I collect articles which I then read in locations too loud for book reading.

Over a cup of coffee today I read three articles with no direct connection between them but still there seems to be a thread, something I pondered over all day.

Article #1 centered around Rousseau’s opening sentence of his book The Social Contract ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ Rousseau expresses a belief that we are fundamentally free but at the same time restricted by other people and institutions, and laws, and a broken coffee machine, and not wanting spaghetti on the wall. The thin line we ropewalk every day between individual freedom and society’s restrictions. I’m sure this concept requires no further introduction as you know it all too well.

Article #2 is an interview with Paul Theroux about a book he launched. I don’t remember the title, it’s irrelevant. Theroux is quoted saying ‘Heaven is travel and travel writing’. There are important things missing from the heaven equation, but I can see a world in which I agree with him.

Article #3 is an interpretation and explanation of Dylan Thomas’ poem ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’. I don’t read a lot of poetry. Too often I just don’t get poetry. Our English teacher in high school made me read this poem, and recently it was sent to me again as it reminded a friend of me. I wanted to read more what others make of the poem, and tell me something about the structural essence and hence this article.

Afraid this Monday would serve me a fourth article that would push me even further down the rabbit hole of the meaning of life and how I, the individual, should deal with that, I closed my ereader and called it quits. What can we make of this my friend? Are these topics we should try to tackle in the daily words we scribble here, or during our runs, or when we converse with friends on lost Sunday evenings over moussaka and a bottle of too sweet white? Or better to be left aside? It may just be the algorithm of life that’s chasing me. I’m simply reaping what I sow.

Ugh. Today is filled with too many question marks obscuring possible answers. It’s time for a run, my head needs clearing.

February 21

JM: I hope to eventually write about them with a quality that I can feel satisfied with.

PC: Because I think I’m making progress.

Forgive me Jack but you are searching for excuses not to do the writing you say you want to. We both know there is no magical moment where you transfer from not satisfied to satisfied without getting the rubbish writing on paper first. Trodding through the mud and getting dirty. Tripping over hidden tree roots, getting back up, hands wet and smelly, cold and dark spots on both knees. It’s fine to acknowledge you’re not comfortable sharing the writing you’re not satisfied with, then keep it to yourself by all means, but don’t hide behind some future epiphany that will fall upon you. Tell me again about the meeting you had with Pablo Casals the other day and how you explained your writing struggles to him!

I’m reading these travel memoirs in February, most of them dating back to times before smartphones, computers even. Dervla Murphy on a bike from Ireland to the Middle East, Paul Theroux circling from London to Tokyo and back by trains, V.S. Naipaul arriving in Mumbai by ship and travelling the subcontinent by train. I continuously wonder how they manage to recollect all the memories when they trust these to paper. Especially the encounters with the people they meet along the road, the conversations they have, often times without the use of a common language. Obviously some of it must be fictional, or at least an interpretation, a summary of reality. That being said, accounts on their writing practises can be found. Often times notebooks would be out on the table while conversing, jotting down notes would start the minute a conversation ended, all of them seemingly made sure to have correct names written down at all times. Again, this is before any device being available other than pen and paper. You and I can either make sure to have a notebook with us at all times (I have), or take notes on our phones. Use a comfortable app to take notes, nothing that distracts, a simple focus on writing, no styling. I use Bear app for all my day-to-day notes, this include a shopping list, travel ideas, cooking recipes, email drafts. Bear allows for files and photos to be stored in text, and it has very simple shortcuts for paragraphing and linking between texts. Also, use the voice recorder on your phone to take notes. It’s a cringing exercise to listen to my own spoken word, collecting the memo’s I made when running, when in line for a store’s checkout, when whipping up our Sunday pancakes, but it’s only a few minutes of pain. I often ask Inyoung if my voice is this weird in real life and she sticks to her argument that it’s just a mental defect, my voice is fine. Currently I can’t offer you a solution how to deal with the thoughts while swimming, but we seem to have every other occasion covered. No more excuses while out with Milo, on the run, or tired of the day. It’s just practise, and practise, and then practise some more.

The outlook of March is indeed looming upon us. We had 2666 for January, a bit of an easy start as we did just the reading and no further review or follow-up. February is definitely a step upwards, I learned quite a bit. It’s better to write early in the day with a clear mind (duh!), I struggle to write just ten minutes, the problem of reviewing while writing needs work. I’d happily continue on the course we’re on, if you’re up for it. A monthly challenge, preferably with a tiny upward step (just tiny!) every time. We could re-do this month in March if that’s what you prefer and I’ll just make it a bigger challenge within. Or what about we produce one piece of writing, say 10,000 words total (you’re now at 8,000-ish for February), but we publish our progress every weekend? Not as proof but just the stick without the carrot, to ensure we don’t end up with some serious homework in the dying days of March. This could offer a good opportunity to write about a deeper topic in a more elaborate way, and still allow sufficient time and opportunity to review, rephrase and improve. A third option is to approach March as February, daily writing, but add stronger restrictions; thematic, style, fixed time of day. Combine writing and reading, combine writing and walking, combine writing and art. Tell me your thoughts too, don’t immediately put a pin it, we can explore some first. Should we ask chatGPT for guidance in March? Tell me some about the writing club you attend(ed), were prompts and restrictions provided?

Lastly, write about the lady in the swimming pool! Write about the lady ignoring unwritten rules, on how one should be punished for not abiding to unwritten rules, on who should decide and pronounce the penalty. I see an image of blood spoiling the chloric blue of the swimming pool after the people’s tribunal has spoken. Then write from the perspective of the lady. What’s wrong with all the other swimmers and their neurotic approach to a little morning exercise in the communal pool? And is that dark-haired Apollo in my lane really carrying a waterproof notepad on his back?

February 22

I often find myself at the corner where the Cheonggye stream and the Seongbuk stream meet. Stream feels like the wrong translation, but I don’t know a better one. We say Cheonggyecheon, with cheon being the Korean word for stream. Someone suggested to translate to creek, but that sounds too natural for these two flows of water that dissect the northern half of urban Seoul. The Cheonggye stream used to be a natural stream, but it is no longer. At 9 kilometers long and water being pumped in from the start near Seoul City Hall, it is jokingly called the longest fountain in the world. The direction of the streams is not man-made though, so they aren’t canals either. Maybe flow itself serves best? Or watercourse? Translation of Korean words to English is often flawed, and it hurts to read or hear it. Tourists often say they are going to see the Cheonggyecheon-stream which is probably the worst. It’s someone saying they are climbing Mont Blanc Mountain. But alas, how would they know. The cringe may well be explained as me finding a reason to boast my little Korean language skills.

A rant on Korean-English translation was not what I set out for. Apologies! I’ll continue with Korean naming and will try to clarify/translate if deemed necessary.

I often find myself at the corner where Cheonggyecheon and Seongbukcheon meet. – Korean has no articles to define a noun – It’s almost 3 km from our house and it’s where my main running route takes a sharp corner from one cheon to the other. It is also where the big size supermarket is where I buy the groceries I can’t find in our town’s market, usually the ingredients for more European-style dishes. And if not on the hunt for groceries, or on a run, you can find me on this corner enjoying the view of the leftovers from the overpass expressway that was torn down in 2005. I’m fascinated by the concept of overpasses in the middle of large cities. Seoul has many. It’s a concept almost completely alien to the Netherlands. A little further down the stream is one that stretches at least 5 kilometers in length, raised some 30 meters above the ground. Walking beneath one of these concrete air snakes one does not hear a thing of the road above, one has no idea of all the happenings up there. On the flip side, riding a cab and crossing over one of these overpasses, one seems oblivious to the idea of life below. It’s as if the road is the new ground level, and the otherwise high-rise apartment buildings are now regular three, four story buildings. I want to get access to one of these apartment buildings overlooking an overpass. It must be a fascinating sight up there, just the road gliding between building roofs, stripped of all the nuisance that’s commonly part of street life.

Cheonggyecheon used to be a natural stream, flowing down from Inwangsan (Inwang mountain) through the city center, snaking its flow all the way down to Hangang (Han river). With the romantic experience one can have here today, it’s park feeling, couples on a late night stroll, it’s easy to forget the stream served as a mere sewage back in the days. It was a stinky part of town and thus was decided in 1968 to fill and cover the water. It became Seoul’s main elevated expressway and with more than 150.000 vehicles crossing a day, a main symbol of Korea’s development. Jumping forward to the beginning of the new millennium. Listening to public sentiment and stressing the importance of offering citizens green area’s for leisure, Seoul’s then-mayor decided to demolish the highway and re-open Cheonggyecheon, gifting it back to the public upon his parting in 2005. It’s no longer the natural stream it used to be, not all Seoulites are happy as the forced flow and its cleaning comes at high cost, but I for one am happy to have this escape from the busy streets and I’ll keep walking its pathways, I’ll photograph the beauty of the imperfect, demolished ugliness and I’ll fantasise about the lives lived up above on the expressway.

I sense a preference in your yesterday’s message for text combined with image, and therefore close with two images of the (beautiful) leftover expressway monstrosities in the middle of Cheonggyecheon, some weeks ago when snow was here. At night joyful animations are projected on the pillars!

February 23

Even though I don’t want to write too much ‘in response to your posts’, I’d rather try for something original to spring from my writing sessions, there are some things in your post that require my thoughts or seem to need answering. I could stay original, write something here and then switch to whatsapp for answers, but since it’s close to book reading time here, I’ll consider today’s writing a bit of a break of the creative spell.

You ask ‘What is better, quality or quantity? How does it work, in writing?’ I wouldn’t know myself but for the few books and articles I read of authors on the craft of writing, it seems neither is the right answer. Both quality and quantity seem to stem from simply sitting down and ‘getting the work done’, ‘putting the miles in’, ‘working the grind’ and more of these platitudes that are both obviously true and fascinatingly boring. So yes, in that sense it’s like running. You want to run a marathon? Then run. Run often. Preferably daily. Don’t turn to others when you don’t feel like it. Free the schedule, run, and run again tomorrow. Looking at our February writings so far, I think we can compliment ourselves, we’re off for a good start.

Approaching March in a similar manner to February sounds good for me, but yes, I’d love to have it somewhat restricted (or rather directed) by pairing with something else. The photo’s sound like a good option. It would mean you sharing a picture with your Monday post, the both of us writing about that particular picture on Tuesday and me adding a picture to the Tuesday post for Wednesday writing. Did I understand that correct?

The pick a book and find sentences on two pages to serve as a start and end to a story sound amusing as well! I’m considering to search an online writing community of some sorts. I could benefit of some prompts, some carrot-and-stick and especially some feedback.

It’s this for today, nothing much, it should have been on whatsapp instead, with a story here about the earl grey and lemon cream donuts I bought. But it isn’t, and I don’t want to do it all over. V.S. Naipaul and his An Area Of Darkness is waiting for me. It’s about him following his Indian roots back to the motherland for the first time, he lives in Trinidad or the UK at the time, and all he does is whine and complain. It’s my first Naipaul reading, I started on high hopes but it’s underwhelming so far. So to close with something you addressed earlier, no I do not often not finish books. I feel the need to persevere, and want to give the author as much benefit of the doubt as I have, but Naipaul is tickling the dnf sinews.

February 24

I leave the large bookstore that is hidden underground between Jonggak Station and Gwanghwamun square, Seoul’s main square in front of the royal palaces called Gyeongbokgung, through a back door, finishing closing my backpack while already climbing the stairs back to street level. I’m in a joyful mood, not only because I allowed myself the indulgence of five fresh books but also because of the conversation I managed to have with the cashier. We scrambled our way smoothly through a little chitchat in Korean; the mandatory ‘yes, I collect points but no, I don’t need a bag’ talk, followed by some pointy comments on the apparent quality of the books at hand, a little laughter over the sinister image on the cover of one of the books, then I misunderstood her question if I needed a parking ticket – but who on earth would go to this busy area by car anyway?! – but I recollected and straightened the metaphorical shoulders complimenting her for the hard work delivered and wishing her a great remainder of the day.

Back on street level I notice something’s going on. Fences are used to square off parts of the sidewalk, and there are police officers everywhere. There’s always police around here, the American and Japanese embassies are a stone thrown away, there’s always protesting around this square. But no, it’s more notable than usual. March 1 is coming up, the day Korea commemorates the beginning of the sam-il (three-one) movement, the first uprise against the Japanese oppressor back in 1919, and an important and sensitive date still. A national holiday. It’s my best guess at explaining the current commotion and since I don’t want to spoil the spirits of earlier conversation, I’m not humiliating myself by asking a sour police officer for explanation. I slug the bag and myself along the square in northern direction, towards the palace. A sense of spring is in the air, I feel the need to take off my winter down but resist the urge. Don’t get too excited now. I turn right before the palace, then cross the street through the pedestrian underpass, and continue the road north, now right from the palace and its gardens.

About halfway I leave the palace area and enter Anguk-dong, a neighbourhood I claim to be too hip for me. Here’s where the young generation Koreans gather for shopping, and gallery visits, and too expensive brunches. Anything that rocks the insta-wall works in Anguk. I’m out of place, but as it’s relatively near to our house, it’s often part of my walks through town. Better make the best of it, Anguk has pleasing aesthetics, and it happens to house one of my happy places in Seoul and as it’s a day of indulgence, I plan to visit. But first things first, I have another address to find.

A little aside from one of the main streets in Anguk is a narrow road leading up to a little higher ground. A natural hill, or a manmade rise, I don’t know. The road is blocked by cars waiting for a barrier, with a large green area behind it, giving one a false idea that we’re heading for a large outdoor parking area. It’s the access to the park in front of the old Jeongdok library. Jeongdok is a library I have not visited, but it’s here that I need to pick up a library card that allows access to all Seoul’s public libraries. I cross the park through a maze of footpaths, all lined with wooden benches; the library’s sluts screaming for scholarly conversation and orated orgasms. The library consists of three buildings that must have been white when built back in the early 70’s, now they boast a comforting color of library grey with lots of windows. When I enter the buildings I am overcome by a nostalgic vibe that can be find in any public library around the world. A cheap, neutral-coloured, vinyl floor. Shoes screeching through the hallways and this familiar pattern of raised dots on the steps of stairs to avoid slipping. Durable is a word that comes to mind walking here. Resilient too. And cost-effective. I wander around the buildings to see if I could use the reading rooms on another occasion. Apparently there’s an online registration system in place that I need to work out at home first. Public offices, why make it easy to use? Just beside the desk where library cards are handed out, I wonder at a so called book shower where one can hang a book a few minutes for the pages to wiggle freely and a fresh breeze of something aromatic to remove the musty reading smells. A good idea? I wonder.

With a freshly laminated card in hand, I leave the library, it’s time to go to Knotted. The donut store that sells a lemon cream donut I’d kill for if need be. It’s a books and donuts kind of Thursday.

February 25

While we jot down these daily musings and I think about the art of writing, I reach a point that I reached in photography as well. It’s where I start to question myself, my values and my moral approach to the craft. It’s easy to slip into the tire tracks one made before, to repeat the things that worked well, to become lazy and to turn a blind eye on why we started this thing initially, why I wanted to write. To what extent are we allowed to manipulate the truth as we experience it to the truth as we write it? It feels unethical to make adjustments to the details of a conversation, to change (or worse improve) the reality of a situation for the sake of let’s call it success, or perfection. But what about all we leave out, don’t mention and delete from that same reality? Texts become dreadfully sluggish if we don’t edit them for readability. I wonder where the difference lies between changing a conversation partner from the random old man he really was into the funny lady he became, or not mentioning the plants we were surrounded by at the time, or the runny nose I had while conversing.

A certain simplicity in photography was lost when digital camera’s and file processing were introduced. The possibilities in photography and the opportunity to create beautiful art multiplied by many dimensions. Simultaneously fakery became part of the equation, and photographers were given an endless amount of new options and decisions to go through before having the end product, the photo, ready. The process that follows the actual click of the shutter button is extensive, energy draining and insanely boring and for me, it strips the entire art of a lot of its joy.

For simplicity sake let’s ignore that a modern photo is never actually ready, because the file can be processed as many times as one like. I click a photo at 1/800th of a second, but we’ll round that generously to a second and we add to that 10 minutes (also largely exaggerated) of me standing on the corner of the street waiting for the one particular color jacket or the one specific motorbike to enliven the scene. That’s still a shorter time frame then going through all the single options of post-processing an image these days. The highest quality file format (raw files) cannot be displayed on screens and have to be converted to file types such as jpg, so there will always be a bit of post-processing. But additionally to file conversion the software I use allows for manipulation of the picture in lighting, in color, in optics, in geometry and in sizing. Each of those themes has at least ten sliders that can be adjusted and obviously most of these now also have AI informed improvements. Any photographer who is serious enough to want to shoot pictures on the highest quality level, will have at least these options available. Many of them use even more advanced software like photoshop, which allows for deleting and adding entire objects to an image, or combining aspects of multiple images in one. Thereby literally changing the aforementioned man to a woman, taking out the plants behind her, and replacing a grey sky by yesterday’s golden sunset. I don’t have this option and I don’t want it either.

Back in the day we had 35mm film photography. Everything leading up to clicking the shutter button was the same (although one clicked a lot less often!), and post-processing was being done. Physically converting the negative film into pictures was a large task, but it was done either by someone who really enjoyed it (the hobbyist) or by someone who got paid to do it (the store owner). It allowed for manipulation of lighting, of colours, and cropping of images, but it was incomparable to the options in digital these days. Maybe all this explains the joy I feel when shooting 35mm film photos. It’s just the realisation that I will bring the full roll of film to the store, pay them some and that will be the end of it for me.

I have developed a loose set of rules for my photography, a practise that restricts me (positively) to some end and I’m considering to write these down in a kind of photography vision. And here I’m wondering now if writing requires a similar approach. Which is the manipulation of the truth when I pick up Orwell’s ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ later today?

February 26

It’s an early Sunday morning and I find myself wrapped in a thick blanket of mysterious pessimism. For reasons unknown I just filled my morning journal with several pages of handwritten dirt. We had a little argument last night, but nothing significant, the mood turned cheerful well before bedtime. Maybe it’s reading Naipaul and his experiences in India poisoning my mood just before falling asleep. I can’t see what the commotion is about, you won’t see me riding the Naipaul hype train any time soon. Yes, he can write, yes yes he is very eloquent and observant, but man do I dislike the attitude of the ever objective observant standing on neutral ground between England and India. Ever elaborate, and all the while carefully explaining the reasons for cause of both sides of a colonial history. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want him to side with the underdog, if we could call a subcontinent of this size underdog anyway, I just want him to stop acting like a know it all judge overseeing the matter. ‘I can explain this well because I was born in Trinidad, also a British colony, but since the Americans are ever-present in Trinidad, a not so British colony. Just get the fuck down from that high horse already.

So it’s Naipaul then? I don’t think so. Even tough book reads before falling asleep should be especially pleasant, occasionally they’re not and there seems to be a well-functioning inner mechanic shielding me from those.

Maybe the realisation of reaching my forties hits harder than I would like to admit. Maybe life in our forties is the closest sensory experience to being immortal. Not the Hulk-like immortality where one can deadlift a truck and outrun lions, but more the feeling that everything is still possible if I’d truly want it, but the only thing that’s no longer worth my energy is crossing the gap between wanting and doing. The lack of urgency caused by immortality that congeals the motivation required to do all the things one can finally do having achieved immortality. Am I on to something here? Is this what forty feels like? The twenties being the aforementioned Hulk-like immortal years, the thirties showing the periodic warning sign (read: 24-hour hangovers) but still bearing heaps of power and energy, and then the misery of undeath after, of contant collision of grand ideas and an old guy’s inertia. Apathetic torpor. Lifelessness.

Signs of life coming from the bedroom. Sunday has arrived. Let’s see if there’s some of yesterday’s energy left in the fridge. I can take her for brunch, and we can stroll together through the city we own. We can go to the movies. Salty popcorn and something Indiana Jones-y. And after the movie we’ll find a cozy beer cafe, get tipsy and dine on dried squid. Then we walk home and laugh for no reason, spring is in the air! Promise and possibility are all around us.

February 27

The girl who lives in the house on the first floor, hung a Christmas decoration on the outside of our building’s front door. It coincided with the day we added a little of the December coziness we longed for to our house, in the form of a tiny, fake tree. Dutch traditions dictate (read: my mom) one cannot start Christmas festivities until Sinterklaas leaves The Netherlands, so it must have been December 7 or 8. I’m not a fan of fake trees, but I’m even less of a fan of cutting down real trees solely for the benefit of an interior atmosphere uplift during the last month of the year. I wouldn’t know where to get a real tree in Seoul either. There are some stores nearby who sell seasonal rubbish, and that’s where we bought our tiny pre-decorated tree. Since it’s tiny, and with the little lights shining bright, you can’t really see the tree, nor the fakeness of the thing. It’s just a source of light in the corner of the room, exactly what we hoped it would be. We let it pour some much needed warmth into our cold December hearts until I picked it up on January 2 and hid our plastic gezelligheid in a bag under the bed, awaiting the next winter. Same Dutch traditions (yeah mom!) dictate the tree and other decorations should be gone by January 6 latest, the Christian celebration of the Three Kings. (Wiki tells me this is called ‘Epiphany’ in English)

Now, February 27, the decoration is still on our front door and every time I pass it, the social awkwardness of the situation strikes me. Are we, the neighbours, expected to take it down since the girl already made the effort of getting it up there? Or better to leave the removal process with her too? I’m assuming she remains the owner of the thing, right? Or should it be considered community property by now? We hardly see our neighbours, there’s the girl on ground floor level, she’s Chinese, and there’s the girl on the first floor, who decorated the door, also Chinese, then there’s us on two and the landlord in the little roof house. Everyone’s busy with their own thing, often seemingly on a rush to leave the house, and I’m pretty confident I’m the only one who still notices the Merry Christmas wreath shining bright. I’d take a bet it’s still on the door when next December arrives, if I don’t do anything about it.

It’s a front door made of glass, with the decoration solidly taped in the middle of the door, so not only do you the see the thing when you arrive at home – I would cut the other residents some slack if so, fifty percent slack to be precise – but you also see it when you leave the house, doubling the views! Entrance through the door is passcode protected with a touchpad, you can’t get in on the fly, it requires proper standstill and potentially a bit of contemplation over the art that is this green plastic December mood looming over you entering the house. It’s obviously bought in Daiso, the franchise chain that would take on Hema in a Korea-Netherlands showdown for generic household goods stores. The store that sells all the things you possibly need, and is therefore named Daiso. Da meaning ‘everything’ and iso meaning ‘there is’. It’s the store you go to on a bright and cold December 8 when you wake up and think ‘Let me do something friendly for the neighbours and our building, let me buy a pretty garland to put a smile on everyone’s face when passing our building this month.’

I could do with a rule book that clarifies both the (my) responsibilities in the matter but also potential deadlines, if there are any. Avoiding in-building social awkwardness is key, I’d be damned making a faux-pass among the small community I’m part of, a million miles away from home. Today and tomorrow still falls within the first two months timeframe, until March 21 it’s still winter season, end of March the first quarter of the year, Easter in the second weekend of April the first next Christian festivities. Or just leave it up there and pretend it still has its same value next December? It’ll fade in this summer’s harsh sun and wither during the rainy season, it’ll be a different color green by the end of the year anyway.

I can really use some help here…

February 28

There is a correlation between the waiting time for a restaurant meal and the extent to which my appetite is satisfied when leaving said restaurant. I have been testing this hypothesis for a while and now feel confident sharing the results. The outcome is not favourable for trendy restaurants, and speaks mainly to the success of hole-in-the-wall, been-around-for-decades, one-specialty-dish eateries. Places without a website, no social media, where they served the same dish before Korea became a democracy and where crumbling wallpaper complements the regular seasoning. Restaurants where it’s expected for food to be faster than guests. From kitchen to table should be faster than front door to table. Oh how I love for the lady of the house to be agressively interfering with the dismantling process of coats, hats and scarves. “Excuse me, be careful, it’s really ho-oooot!”.

We met a friend for lunch today in a neighbourhood known to be popular with youngsters. There’s a well-known university and several high schools, and therefore boasts a large center of streets lined with restaurants and coffee places. A magnet for trendy, hipster food joints that care just as much for its instagrammability as for its food. And sometimes more for the former. It’s windy outside when we wait for our guest to ascend from the metro station and we bicker a little over where to go to. Inyoung has a preference for something new and popular, housed in a renovated traditional Korean building. I walked by there several times before and know that even Tuesday lunchtime comes with a long line outside. I have a preference for any location that whips up a large plate of savoury, warm goodness, where service comes with some shouting and where we can shield from this icy Siberian wind. As you do in a relationship like ours we compromise… We do what my wife wants.

Our friend arrives and we walk to the restaurant. “Oh, there’s a queue. On a Tuesday afternoon!” they yell surprised. I grumble mutely. We secure our spot on a tablet in front of the entrance. There are 21 ‘teams’ before us. Team is not a label I made up, we’re really called Team 22. I think of Squid Game and prepare myself mentally for the battle that lies ahead. We remain in good spirits, pretending a pale sun warms us. 75 minutes later. Seventy-five minutes later. SEVENTY-FIVE Jack! Not for a fancy Friday night dinner. For lunch! We are called in for a meal that turns out to be one of the most disappointing eats I had in a long time. Taste’s not bad but not especially good either, and the amount sucks. We leave the restaurant well within the hour and I’m just as hungry as I was when still on Team 22. As per earlier experiences with waiting for restaurants (but also waiting for meals after ordering) my hypothesis is supported. The longer the wait, the less satisfied I leave. I’d like to suggest the following rule for restaurant experiences, to be applied globally: Waiting time < Eating time. Simple and effective.

I quickly suggest a café nearby where the coffee beans are from another level, and I put extra stress on mentioning the aesthetics of the place; stained glass windows, classic Korean mother-in-pearl furniture, very trendy and great for selfies and food photography. But all I think of is a large piece of their carrot cake. And would it be weird to ask for a brownie on top of that?