Nearly Home

Only 6 short days until I return home after a month in Korea. And what a horrible month its been so far. Seoul is a rat race defined. The weather is unbelievably stuffy, even my SE Asian acclimatised body is finding it oppressive. My accomodation provided by way of contract is barely bigger than my own body. The place I'm working may as well be operated by a troop of monkeys with bowler hats on. There's nowhere interesting to go that isn't a fair train ride away, and who wants to get on the subway system with all those people after a day at work. To add to it all, I spent the best part of 3 days in bed with a horrible fever thing which I was uncharacteristically unable to shake off. At 20 letters, I'm sure that uncharacteristically is the longest word I've used in a while.

Saigon is easy. I get on my motorbike, and I go. Saigon is cool, with my doors open and my fan on. Saigon is tasty - I can sip a nice fruit juice or a cafe sua da, eat a kebab, a burger, a salad, some pasta, a pizza, some lovely seafood, some cheescake, a muffin; whatever I bloody well want. Or I can order it to my house. Saigon is comfortable; I can choose from any number of my favourtie sofalishious venues around town, and they are all within 10 mins of each other on my bike. Saigon is cheap; I remembered when I was taken to TGI Fridays here in Seoul. They were charging $26 a main course, and it tasted awful. Three mains for $89, and the steaks weren't even steaks. It's criminal. Give me a pleasant evening at Le Jardin or La Nicoise - proper beef steaks in pepper sauce and white wine for two - no more than $15. Saigon is friendly; its not hard to get a smile around town. Saigon is interesting. Saigon has cable TV with more than 3 English channels. Saigon has ESPN and STAR. Nuff said. Lastly of course, Saigon has Mrs Hoff (well, not quite yet, and she won't take the surname I'm sure, but you know what I mean!).

Also, I've twice had my arm hair stroked in fascination in the Saigon traffic. Beat that. I have yet to run my fingers along the two long whispy hairs emerging from a gentlemans face mole whilst waiting at traffic lights.....but that's hardly surprising.