As of Today, as in this Very Moment...

I sort of shot myself in the foot with the whole "attempt at chronology" thing. My days are ticking by and my return to the states is now impending.
My blog has you all up to date... in regards to the first two and a half weeks of my travels. But there are more than four weeks to catch up on. Well, at least my concepts are bold even when my actions falter.

Yesterday I left two of my oldest, best-est friends and two brand new friends (oh, and one barely-acquaintance) in Seoul and got on a Subway to head to the Incheon airport. This was preceded by a completely awkward and random laughing tear session in front of all these people. Well, Kady and Shawn should be used to these.
I always get that way at the end of trips.

Aww crap, what now?

It's like saving up for that thing that you wanted all those years and then you finally buy it and it's...great.
Or are you actually just renting or leasing it and now you have to give it back?

I had planned my trip this way with many a good reason. One of them being that when booking the flight, I had every intention of heading straight to Chaing Mai the next day but as the weeks went by I realized that the last thing I wanted to do was anything that had anything to do with heat (to be read "105 plus degree weather") or buses or planes or heat or trekking or heat or hostels.

So Shawn gave me some incredible advice: He told me to treat this as a vacation. He asked if I had money left in the budget. I said, what budget? He said I should give myself permission to hole up in a hotel, preferably with a jacuzzi, and read and sleep and not try and do or see anything unless I really wanted to.

So that's what I'm tryyyying to do. I'm trying to have a "vacation". Today this meant sleeping til 10 am, taking a taxi (gasp!) to the skytrain, taking the sky train to the giant fancy mall, eating sushi and ice cream then spending three shameless hours online booking, at a jacuzzi-less $27, the most expensive hotel Kady and I have stayed in this entire trip (with taxes, etc.) and trying to find out what else there is to do on facebook.

There was a bit of an ordeal getting to and checking in to the hotel but I'm here. At this point, I have explored the neighborhood, tried on a pair of shoes that make me think of Beata, eaten a snickers bar that may or may not have been ten years old and had a gin and tonic in the shower. I have every intention of perhaps taking a bath later just because I can. Because there is not only hot water, but there is a bath tub. As in, a place to bathe separately... that is actually separated from the rest of the bathroom.
I'm now lounging on a king size bed. There is air conditioning. There is a flat screen TV with cable (one English channel- fashion). There is room service.

My one mistake? I booked this hotel not knowing that this neighborhood might as well be called "Little Africa". Some of you won't know what this means and that's ok because this is only for those who do, but...
If I wanted to be left alone, I picked the wrong neighborhood.

Tomorrow, I plan on doing many indulgent and out-of-character things. I would like some suggestions. But so far my list of prospectives are: sleeping in, spending more than 4USD to feed myself for the day, buying an iced mocha at Starbucks, seeing a movie, trying on $2000 shoes...

Or maybe I will never leave my hotel room and order room service all day while downloading movies and American television...

Either way, I'll see some of you as early as Thursday and the rest of you in late July...

(Please don't stop reading my blog; I plan on catching up the next 48 hours)