One last meal

Last minute catching up took me to the post office. I cannot leave a foreign country without some postal stamps. Since the bus didn't stop there I had to walk through the interesting Korean tent shops where there were native fashions, message, food sampling and Herstory tours. The 9th International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Seoul, Korea, is winding down. Just after lunch I removed my poster from Management Hall. The student docent was curious about my presentation and we discussed it at length. She is a business student expecting to graduate next quarter. After working for several years she hopes to go to another country. I invited her to keep in touch with me.
The new Ewha museum was my last stop before the steep climb up to the auditorium where I could catch the shuttle bus to Hanwoori Hall. Korean pottery is on display, some of it broken pieces from antiquity. As I strolled past the exquisite and the mundane, my fingers itched to get into the mud and create again. Most of the descriptions explained locations and ancient dates so the geography and history were lost on me. I made notes about some plants. It seems four plants are considered gentlemen : plum, orchid, chrysanthemum, and bamboo. What makes them gentlemen I will have to search for enlightenment from the internet. There are ten longevity symbols somewhere to look for also. The brochures had no clue. It's a good thing there were no albums of the work on display or I would have bought it. Like I need more stuff to carry home.
The only photos I could take were in the lobby and there were interesting orchids in bloom. I snapped dozens of pictures of the old trees still standing outside although they were severely clipped. There are elaborate supports holding them up. No mulch or ground cover prevents erosion of the top soil and the trees probably need the extra support during the monsoons.
The students at the reception desk in the dormitory were doing a photo session and I grabbed my digital and joined the fun. They became concerned about my trip to the airport tomorrow. It seems more complicated than the taxi ride coming in on Sunday. But they will see that I get sent home properly.
I will miss the ease at which I could access this familiar Hewlett Packard with Windows XP. Much of the directions are in Korean but the little boxes are placed in Microsoft menus so I could guess a lot. For all the technology at Ewha U, very few locals speak English. To do it right they should begin to learn before they are 6 years old. Dad couldn't remember his native language by the time I was old enough to ask about it. Before that he had been determined to become American and learned the language as soon as possible. I'd better quit rambling. I need to go eat dinner. I will leave before breakfast tomorrow so this will be my last meal.
Naomi Sherer