Monday we were up and out early to the Chinese embassy applying for entry visas. We gave over our passports to a foreign power, expecting them returned on Wednesday.

We also had to get a sizable cash advance on a credit card to pay the antique dealers in cash. They don’t like to take credit cards because they don’t like the fees and the hassle. Problem is, who likes to carry around that much cash? The largest currency denomination is 10,000 won. We needed to obtain 2,000,000 won. When the woman handed the stacks across the counter, it felt like we were robbing a bank. The bulk wouldn’t fit in our wallets and I wouldn’t risk carrying it all in my backpack, so I put the whole wad in the inside breast pocket of my coat, where it bulged out from my chest in a hard rectangle. I carried it that way the rest of the day, ultimately even forgetting I was carrying it.

Dave and I parted in Myong-dong: He walked off toward the subway heading for work while I strolled toward Namdaemun market for yet more shopping. I searched unsuccessfully for a new camera bag. They were all too cheaply made and too small. I already have one just like that and I don’t need another. I bought floor pillows for Dave’s mom, which were big and bulky to carry around, but carry around I did for the next several hours.

A cold snap had settled in, pushing all the pollution to the ground and opening up clear blue skies. Perfect conditions for picture-taking. So I did, leisurely, while managing the big bulky pillow bag. From the market I walked the high-class red light district behind the heart of the downtown business district. I snapped off a shot of an ancient woman and a guy in a motorcycle helmet squatting over plucked chicken carcasses in the street. They were chopping the chickens into cooking pieces. On Chongno I stopped in at the Pilot Pen store and bought many years worth of my favorite pen, the Hi-Tec-C. It’s a roller ball that comes in a variety of colors with tips as fine as .04 or even .03. No other pen writes as smoothly and they are not available in the US.

I walked from there to Insa-dong where I ate soba noodles in a Japanese restaurant. Not as good as in Japan, but I’d been wanting soba since my little detour at Narita, so I was satisfied. I bought two dishes on sale and priced a painting. I bought a fish-shaped cake filled with red bean paste from a street vendor. I tried to price Chinese tea sets but there was no one around. And when I went back to Geek Ta Go, the man was not there. I left and caught the bus home. The weight of the pillow bag, the pens, and the pottery had worn me out.

At 4pm the bookcase we bought at the antique market showed up. It was brought by the shop owner’s wife and an old man. The piece was too big for the elevator and the old man was too proud to abdicate his delivery duty to me, the clearly stronger one. He tried to heft the whole thing onto his back, which he couldn’t do and which resulted in his biffing it into the ceiling. He scraped the thing across the floor, knocked it into the hand railing. A gate guard finally came to help, and the old guy allowed it - another man, see. The two carried it up six flights of stairs, which nearly killed the old guy and our ancient bookcase. It was a miracle they didn’t destroy the thing. Those new marks aren’t dents right? Just "character". I handed over one thick stack of bills to the woman and that was that.