right now i'm all full of cream puff pastry. i ate it right after a mozzarella, eggplant, pesto, and tomato sandwich that was smaller than the pastry. is that wrong?

but what's cooler than what i just ate is that i'm in seoul, south korea, in this ridiculous hyatt hotel, that's perched on the top of a huge hill, overlooking the city.

yesterday, b and i took the day off and spent the whole day, not absorbing any of the historical aspects of the city, but...uh-huh, shopping. it was incredible. seoul has this lovely little downtown antiques district that has street vendors and art shops and alleys with little buddhas and jewelry etc. then we went to the more modern shopping area that has some american shops, but also has shops such as who.a.u. california dreaming, which has tags that look just like abercrombie's and same clothes with a little korean style twist (i.e. they're really into scoop neck sweater vests). there was a diesel (tankus) and a tommy knockoff store. also tons of things with completely wrong phrases in english. a source of hours of amusement.

tonight's our last night here and i'm sick, but i think i'll rally and drag myself anyways, when will i ever again get to experience seoul nightlife, right?

tomorrow we're off to shanghai, then xi'an, and then beijing.

i went to a conductor's competition today, took some notes, thought about what music means to me and why we don't do anything cultural at home. why don't we mo? (btw, i can't believe you watched house of flying daggers without me, how many times did i want to rent that? and you watch it with yo bf? uh uh.)

so while you're all sitting down eating stuffing and gravy and pie (uumm, pie, eat some for me) and mashed potatoes and feeling like you need to unbutton the top button, i'll be eating dumplings and getting smoked on and watching lots of old chinese guys spit in the street.

sleeping in the ger was excellent. way better than camping out. it was so cold and so open and empty out there. it was incredible to think that people decided to settle there at all.