I haven't seen half as many things here as someone more extroverted and bent on adventure might. Though I might just get dragged into a lot of it in the coming months if the past month is any kind of indication. My new friend is very much the adventure seeker type with the ability to wear me out! (Sorry, Dottie, but it's true! And you know it.)
I've seen two palaces in Seoul: Changdeokgung and Gyeongbokgung. Both were beautiful and elegant in their own way though I preferred the nature oriented architecture and garden of the former. I promise pictures from both places, but they are waiting their turn in an increasingly larger backlog of pictures I need to polish up and upload onto flickr. (I know I have a link in the sidebar, but here is the link again to my flickr photostream.)
I'm halfway through uploading the pictures from Chuseok in September. It's the South Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving in the US and all the little preschoolers and kindergarteners dressed up in hanbok, korean traditional clothes. I even got into the spirit with a hanbok loaned to me by the school.
My kids are growing on me though a few are still in the "can I just strangle them?" category when they refuse to listen in class to "Teacher". I've gotten oddly used to talking about myself in the third person as "teacher" this and "teacher" that. Or even "Anna Teacher" when the occasion calls for it.South Korea has grown on me and I like it a lot here (even if my workload is frustratingly heavy at times). I'm glad I came.
So what does it take to drag me out of my hermit, coping hole? NaNoWriMo of course. It's right around the corner. Less than two weeks away! And I'm raring to go. I'm excited to meet with fellow Nanoers here in the Seoul area in the coming month though I hope to find some to write with who are closer than a 15 minute walk to the subway and another 30 to 60 minute ride on the subway itself. But we'll see how it turns out. I have a few potential coffee shops lined up for writing in and I may take up residence there for a good portion of the month even if no one else joins me.
Since it is late as I write this, I leave you with the two covers that my lovely friend Riella made for my NaNo novels (my interview with her is here) and my two synopses. You'll recognize the first as the novel I wrote and won with last year under a new name, but I haven't yet finished it and so it will take first priority before its sequel.
A Breath in Time:Alice Oglethorpe is a brilliant scientist and the driving force behind the colonization of the moon. However, no one knows she gained her brains by traveling space and time for over a hundred years. When a former nemesis attacks the moon base, Alice's cover is blown and she must use all of her acquired knowledge to save not just the colonists, but all of humanity from destruction.
Point of No Return:
The moon colony has been saved, but if the infestation is to be stopped, the bugs must be traced to their source and eradicated. Alice Oglethorpe embarks on this mission accompanied by her old team who helped her the first time. But can she go back to the old life when she now has a human companion to remind her of what she might have once had?
Until next time!
