a good day to be alive

Today was one of those days.

For starters, it was 34 frickin' degrees: right up my alley. The pale blue sky was filled with puffy clouds that scooted along with the icy wind, and the year's first lasting snow clung wetly to the pavement and frozen ground. I got up, ate a ham sandwich with steak sauce, saw my wife-to-be off to work, hit the gym, came home, showered, and ate a hearty lunch of baked beans, an apple and another bite or two of ham. Then I bundled up and walked to Sejong University. Three subway stops—about eight or nine blocks, I'd say. Up the hill that marks Gwangnaru's western border, where they're building this humongous bridge/tunnel thingy and the road's all torn up; through the winding, sinuous, tilted neighborhood of Achasan, with its wedding halls and stumpy office buildings and goshiwon and villas and mom-'n'-pop chicken shops, nestled in the foothills of the mountain of the same name; and into the brighter, more trendy neighborhood of Gunja, with its coffee shops and bakeries and upscale chicken joints and high-class brunch spots and the glass-fronted tower of the CGV Cinema looming over all. It was a good stretch of the legs, particularly with the ice on the sidewalk and the wind on my bare forehead. Glorious. I had "Levels" by Avicii and "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons playing on a continuous loop on my iPod. I squinted in the bright winter sunlight, bundled up to my ears in a much-beloved, ridiculous-looking black-and-grey scarf.

Work breezed by. During my break I sat in the coffee shop in the student union and sipped chamomile tea. I was my usual goofy self for the students. Their reactions were all the more interesting since I have Chinese, Japanese and North Korean students in my extra classes. I stuck my stuff back in my cubicle at 5:30, bundled up again, and walked from Children's Grand Park to Gunja Station as the last of the purple light was dying from the sky, and the clouds were fading to a deep magenta. The wind was stronger than ever and the slush had turned to jagged ice. Avicii and Imagine Dragons kept me company once again as I rode the subway two stops home.

I felt like I'd had a productive day—smack dab in the middle of a productive week. On Monday I'd sent a Christmas package to my parents, as well as Christmas and birthday cards to my grandparents. On Tuesday, Brant, Joseph and I climbed into a thirteen-story building right across from the Gunja CGV, to a chicken-and-hof on the 12th floor. We had some of the best spicy chicken we'd ever tasted and two bottles of Cass lager apiece. Then we went to my place and bottled the gingery IPA that we'd cooked up a week ago. Eight tantalizing glass bottles of various sizes are now sitting on my kitchen shelf, carbonating themselves.

After Brant and Joseph had departed, I booked my entire trip to Hokkaido. A flight to Narita, a capsule hotel near Tokyo Station, another Japan Rail Pass, and three nights at the Sapporo Clark Hotel. I'm doing the Yuki Matsuri, folks—the Snow Festival. It's a world-famous snow-sculpting extravaganza held in Sapporo every February. I've always wanted to see it (that, and the ice festival they hold in Harbin, China). Then I'm taking various trains all the way down through the three Home Islands of Japan. My final destination is Hakata, there to catch the old JR Beetle to Busan, just like I did last August. There's another blowout in Busan the second weekend in February, and I wouldn't miss it for the world.

There's just something euphoric about having a trip booked. The knowledge that you'll be out on the road again soon just gets into your blood. I felt like skipping as I marched to Gunja Station, even though the winds of Thor, as Led Zeppelin sang, were blowin' cold. I was on Cloud 9, and still am. After I finish this post I'm going to type up some more of Novel #4 and then meet the wife-to-be for dinner at our favorite Korean barbecue joint...right next to our villa.

All is right with the world.

Of course, soon the madness will begin. My students' term papers are due on Thursday and Friday, and I'll have to grade 'em and quick, for the final exams start the following Monday and run until Wednesday. I'll have to come in on Thursday and Friday of next week to get everything done, I reckon, but after that...freedom. Two months of it. Part of it will be an odyssey of self-improvement (more about that later) and part of it will be Hokkaido.

Friggin' Hokkaido. In winter. Do you know how long I've waited for this?

I should really stop complaining and appreciate the life I've got.