This trip to Seoul has been total boredom for me. No one from the office was available for dinner any night. And it’s fricking cold here, right now it’s -1 C, so I’m not in a mood to go out and wander streets aimlessly in search of dinner.
Which means the shopping mall under the hotel. Heading down there at 9:30 (after watching Steve Coogan in Hamlet 2, quite disappointing for the most part), the fast food joints are closed and there are only a few restaurants still open.
If you find yourself in such a situation ….
Do not decide to first head to the bookshop, which has a small section of English language books.
Do not decide to purchase An Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan.
Do not decide to eat your dinner at TGI Fridays.
Do not start reading the book after ordering your food.
By the time my food showed up, I had finished reading the introduction. After those few pages, the food that showed up looked barely edible but I went for it. As I read the next 15 or 20 pages, I looked at what was left of what I had been served and totally lost my appetite before coming anywhere near finishing what was on the plate.
I am now sitting my hotel room eating corn (chocolate Oreos) and drinking corn (Mountain Dew).
What’s ultra-depressing, and I admit this is far from new, is how cultures that have amazing food traditions based in healthy and natural foods, especially Asian cultures, are replacing these traditions with the heavily marketed synthetic crap that America has almost literally rammed down the collective throats of the rest of the world.
The funny thing (to me) is the extraordinary amount of willpower and discipline it now takes in order for me to consistently eat healthy. It’s not easy to break the habit of decades of junkfood, especially when it’s so pervasive around the globe.
Okay, nothing horrendously original, just what’s on my mind at the moment.
Excuse me now, I think I’m going to hurl.
