Chapter Eighteen: This Must Be the Place

Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
I feel numb - born with a weak heart
I guess I must be having fun

Home - is where I want to be
But I guess I'm already there
I come home - she lifted up her wings
Guess that this must be the place

Big changes are coming to the blog, I hope. I redesigned it recently as well. When I moved to Seoul I wanted something dreary and grey and impersonal. But it turns out that dreary is...well, rather dreary. I want to make this blog easier to follow as well. Soon I will be traveling and there will be more updates, more pictures, and more videos.

In other news, I lost my camera (see the sidebar "An Irish Ambush in South Korea"). A new one is on the way but in the meantime this blog is going picture free.

I am working on some thoughts on Korea/wrap up posts. In the meantime, here are some of the things I miss from Portland after almost a year away. (Of course, friends and family top the list. But you guys all have big egos and I don't want to do anything to make your heads swell further.)

Powells: It's a city ... of books. Duh.

Bye and Bye: Good beer, vegan food, good music; just a cool place. Maybe the best hang out place I have found.

Sweat Pea: I have only been here half a dozen times or so, but I can say this is the best bakery I have ever been to. The fact that it's vegan is almost irrelevant; this place is simply awesome.

New Old Lompoc: This could be any of a thousand microbreweries, but I dig their seasonal stouts and filling mason jars with beer is always fun.

Laurelhurst Theatre: You mean there is a cinema that serves beer AND is cheaper than the big cinemas? Seems too good to be true. I chose this over the Baghdad and others because they offer more movies and better beer.

Wildwood Trail. Almost as amazing as the length and beauty of it is the ready accessibility. You can hope onto this sucker from so many different places and instantly you are transported into a wilderness experience.

Rain: Scoff all you want, but the winters in Oregon are beautiful in their own drizzly way. If nothing else, they make the first sunny day of spring feel like an international holiday. And if that doesn't convince you, consider that I've been waking up to temperatures of minus twenty (Celsius).

Atomic Art: Joanne is a legend and I wish I was still getting some work done from her. The only consolation: for the price of a large-ish tattoo, you can live in SE Asia for three or four months.

Blossoming Lotus: When I think about the food I miss, their avocado sandwich on whole grain bread comes up first. *Drools*

Belmont Station: A truly impressive collection of great beers. If they allowed international online ordering, I would have spent embarrassing amounts of money on importing IPA's and imperial stouts.

Por Que No? The food and daily drinks are great, but this is one of the only places where I feel the ambiance alone is worth the visit.

Last Thursday: Pure awesome. Urban life at its eclectic best, and one of the reasons that NE Portland has supplanted SE as my favorite part of town.

Wandering and discovering new things. Urban wandering in Korea is still fun, but you come across the same restaurants, shops, and areas that you find everywhere else. I miss wandering and finding something like an interesting new cafe or shop.

Fred Meyers: It surprises me too; Freddies is about as glamorous as finding ecoli in your salad. But it is one place that has many of the comforts of home. Homeplus and Emart are nice, but they don't quite have the same variety (though they crush in the gimchi and dried squid department).