Routine Check-up

Smile Restaurant is a hole in the wall with maybe six tables. Before the place shut down, the door was usually open when I walked past, and I always glanced inside, and there were always two or three women seated at one of the tables, eating fruit and watching Korean soaps on the little TV. When you went in, one of the ladies would stand up and smile and give you a menu. You would get your glass bottles of Coke or Chilsung Cider (which is like Sprite) or whatever from the refrigerator in the back of the dining room. Once you were ready, the lady would take your order and then go behind a half-wall partition to cook for you in the kitchen area while the rest of the ladies kept watching TV. The one time we ate there, one of the vegetables in my meal was seaweed, so we didn't try that place again.

That was about two weeks after I arrived in Korea. See? I was still taking pictures of things just because they had another language on them. Everything was new and amazing. Now, six months later, the novelty's long gone - or at least moved out of Waegwan - replaced by routine, obligation, the everyday struggle of adult life, and dietary restrictions.

My family visited New York City a few times when I was, like, 11 or 12. I'd never seen a city like that, and I fell in love. For years after those trips, I would ask my parents when we could go back, and write poems about how much I missed NYC, and cry. I haven't been back, because even from Virginia, it's too far.

I'm hoping I don't do that with South Korea. What if, as soon as the plane takes off to take us home, I develop a giant hole in my heart that bothers me for years? I couldn't even get back to NYC; how would I ever find the chance to go across the world and 14 hours into the future to see here again? 

I wouldn't. Won't. So every morning when I wake up, I'll have to remind myself where I am, and try not to let routine interfere.