The end...

Summer is long since gone, weeks ago I bought a jacket that I am now forced to don everytime I leave 'home'(I insert the quotations as I have had no home of my own for months now). The temperature has dropped and a biting, cold wind sweeps up and down the crowded streets. The previously hazy green mountain tops that press skyward shedding the cement trappings of the city have yellowed anad brazened in the brisk autumn air. The beach is now less the massing point for the hordes that it was in August. For the most part the sand lies undisturbed by human feet and the tracks of pigeons and gulls criss-cross the pale sands. This is when the beach is its most beautiful, when the crowds are content to pass by but gazing into the ocean and the whole strech of pale sand and white-crested waves is admired by romantic gazers and casual strollers. The skies darken in the early afternoon (South Korea does not participate in daylight savings time) and the purple air of the night is cold. Reddened cheeks are brightened by the fluourescent glow of city streets, the buildings serving as little more than a frame for the thousands of signs that hang over the street, creating the impression of earlier afternoon for the hundreds that line the streets outside shops, restaraunts, bars and carts hawking food, clothes, toys, souvenirs, drinks, female companionship, anything and everything that will sell, calling out in dozens of languages at the tens of thousands squeezing down the streets. Shuffling patiently between them and the cars vigourously using horns to keep the crowds huddled towards the sides of the streets, as they thread their way at break-neck speeds down crowded single lane alleys across town. Everything is clear and the nighttime is beautiful like intermittent the explosion of fireworks along the beach; scratching colour violently in contrast to the dark sky and grey concrete. Nighttime is ideal for traversing the gwangalli bridge: the signs and fireworks along gwangan beach reflecting, shimmering on the black bay; and the ferris wheel at the amusement park alit with bright moving light. The chill of the night provides a convenient excuse for warming yourself with korean hospitality; gathering with friends around a table (and not a few bottles of soju) in a galbi restaraunt. I will miss the galbi experience: the sizzle of meat and vegetables; the clink of shot glasses; the cheers; the laughter of friends and the warm feeling in my chest that isn't just the soju.