Bookworm in Busan

I've been checking and re-checking just to be sure, and it's official:  This city was made for me.

It's a marvelously elastic place -- room for the boisterous, athletic types who must hike up the mountains by day and bathe themselves in the neon glow of bars by night and there is also space also for sedentary bookworms who like nothing more than to sit at the beach(es!) reading with shoes and socks off and toes stuck down in the cool sand.  There's also cutely-themed coffee shops with quiet corners and chairs with comfortable cushions to squish down into.

Deliberate calculation is not something I excel at, but before this somewhat reluctant (I can't believe my ambivalence now) move to Busan, I decided to place myself near the center of the city since I had to find my own apartment anyway.  Worked like a charm. I'm exactly 30 minutes from my workplace by subway.  I'm not that great at math, but I managed to work out in a flash that going there and back home again = one hour of reading time. A few extra moments can be squeezed in if I start while waiting for the train to arrive, and use the time on the shuttle bus that goes to the university.

Going the opposite way, I'm approximately 30 minutes from the aforementioned beaches.  At the closest beach, Gwangalli, there's a sweet little New-Zealand themed bar called Beached, and this bar is the home of the Busan Book Swap, which has been going strong for about two years.

In a perfect world, there would be a book swap every single weekend, right?  But this is Busan, my almost-perfect world, and what better consolation than the English used bookstore/cafe/bar, Fully Booked, which is about 20 minutes away by subway?  They have a fresh and quirky selection of used books, and it's also a popular hangout for people to meet and play board games.  Book browsing and game playing can make a person hungry, which the owners of Fully Booked fully understand, so they also offer delicious paninis. Since the weather was still a bit chilly when I arrived, I was most appreciative of their mulled wine, but now that it's warming up, I'm getting even fonder of their sangria.

That's my sangria.  Delicious.  It had raspberries in it.  And I found The Dud Avocado, which I've wanted to read for years.  Successful visit!

Gotta say, I'm a pretty happy bookworm.

Of Books And Bathtubs

Right now, I'm playing the waiting game -- waiting for a visa issuance number so I can travel to Japan and get my new work visa, and waiting and wondering what would be the best date to move my stuff over to Erewhon. Being in a holding pattern makes me feel too frenzied to read. Yesterday was the first day in *years* that I didn't read one word. I can't even find my Tough & Cool Inner Bookworm anymore. Baby come back?

Sunday was book group (Lonesome Dove) at high noon in Gangnam, but I got in so late Saturday evening from the US that I couldn't rally. Damn. Jet lag almost always wins. I heard that we picked up a new member named Melinda. I'm looking forward to meeting her at the March 8 (Atlas Shrugged) meeting.

On Monday, my son and I went to the U.S. Embassy in Seoul to get my (lack of) criminal record notarized. Ooops, forgot it was President's Day. I was annoyed, but not for long. After all, there's a Kyobo bookstore nearby, where I bought The Zahir by Paulo Coelho for an upcoming book group. After that, we found a hotel near the embassy, then set out to do more bookstore-hopping. As we went down in the subway at Jonggak, I gasped. Right there in front of me, glittering like jewelry, was a Bandi & Luni bookstore that I didn't know existed! Silently promising it that I *would* be back, we took off for Yongsan Station.

I had not revisited the bookstore at Yongsan Station since my son showed it to me in 2007, so I'd forgotten what a gem of a place it is. The books seem to be slightly cheaper, and the literature section had some delightfully quirky finds. To my delight, I found The Mambo Kings Play Songs Of Love, the 1990 Pulitzer fiction winner. Since the train from Erewhon goes directly to Yongsan Station, I won't let another 2 years go by till I visit again.

After a dinner of rice and octopus and assorted vegetables, we headed back to the Bandi & Luni at Jonggak. They had some Wodehouse, which I want to read, but I hesitated to buy any because I'm not sure which book to start with. Also, I saw a Sigrid Undset novel called Jenny that I had also seen at Yongsan Station. From the description, I was pretty sure I'd like it, but ended up leaving Bandi & Luni empty-handed. I started thinking about how I was going to have to move all of these books I was buying. We headed back to the hotel. Determined to appreciate the bathtub to its fullest extent, I took a hot bath for about an hour. Still smashed over the head with jet lag, I crashed at 8:30.

On Tuesday, I completed my business at the U.S. Embassy, then my son and I took the train over to Erewhon so I could meet with my new director. Discussion moved to the subject of the new apartment, and she kindly showed me some sample pictures on her computer. When she got to the bathroom, I was awestruck: A BATHTUB! I'M GOING TO HAVE MY VERY OWN BATHTUB IN MY APARTMENT! The bathtub is one of my very favorite places to read, and I've been missing that sorely during my Korea sojourn. Not only will I have a wonderful place to enjoy books, I'll be able to get back in touch with my girly side -- the walls and the fixtures are all bright pink. The whole bathroom looks like it was hosed down with Pepto-Bismol.

Today's project involves moving all the books I have in my office and bringing them over to Dorm Sweet Dorm. Can you feel my pain? Building a library is one thing. Moving it is quite another.

Reading In The Bathroom

In Sylvia Plath's novel THE BELL JAR, Esther Greenwood decides that the world is divided into two parts: People who have had sex, and people who haven't. For a long time, I concurred. But now that I'm older (notice I didn't say wiser!), I think the world is divided up like this: People who read in the bathroom and people who don't.

Growing up, our bathroom looked like a waiting room with magazines in little plastic wastebaskets by the toilet. My grandmother's bathroom was even better: She had huge stacks of TRUE CONFESSION in there. Summers and holidays when we'd go to visit, I'd eagerly hone my reading skills.

For me, there is no long bathroom visit (I'm trying to be delicate here) without some kind of reading material. I hazily remember my potty-training days; I remember being handed a Christmas catalog and told to "look at the wish book" until something happened.

Nicholson Baker addressed this topic with his typical vigor and humor in ROOM TEMPERATURE. The husband in the novel needs to complete a "Big Job" in the bathroom *right away*, but he simply can't go until he finds the perfect book to take in there with him. During a brief and frenzied search, his wife looks at him bemusedly: "Big Job?" "Big Job," he nods, finding the desired book and heading down the hall.

I've adopted Nicholson's "Big Job" line for my own purposes, mostly to puzzle my husband. I didn't realize until well after the nuptials (a year? Two years?) that he doesn't take a book to the latrine. I was confounded, but didn't say anything until he did.

"You read while you're...? He finally said.

"Doing the Big Job? Yes."

"Why?"

"Whaddaya mean, WHY?" I went on the offensive. "You never read in there, do you?"

He looked appalled. "NO!"

"WHY NOT?" Finally, I was going to find out his dark secret.

"Well, because..." He paused, and I could tell that he was trying to figure out how to put it to a crazy woman. "Because you're not in there to read. You're in there to...to do a job, and you need to concentrate on doing the job and getting out of there."

"Reading can help with concentration."

No reply.

"Hey, I'm normal! What about your father? He takes books in there!"

He shook his head and walked away, but I don't think it was to the bathroom. I was left with my revelation: There are people in the world who don't read in the can!

I went down the list of people I'd known and loved who were can readers:

Nicholson Baker, for one. Well, I don't know him or love him, but he goes on the list anyway.

My mother. My father. My grandmother.

My aunt. (she even has an attractive little table in there right in front of the toilet topped with interesting reading material)

My first husband (who I'll call Manfred, Sr. in this blog) took a book in there. Often it was science fiction, but he was flexible.

Then there was my interlude with someone who I'll call Geezer. Geezer was partial to Civil War history. I remember a huge tome by Shelby Foote.

I paused my mental list when I came to my son, Manfred, Jr. Does he read in the bathroom? I know he sings in the shower, but does he read in the can? This is someone I've known for almost 20 years, and a good 16 of them he's been potty-trained. Still, I have no idea. Logic would tell me yes, because he's an inveterate comic reader, and comics are light and easy to transport from room to room. Also, if he's in the middle of a good read away from the bathroom, he doesn't like to be distracted or interrupted. In addition, he has both a mother and father who are can-readers.