Shopping Saves

In my self-imposed exile from everyone and everything that I love I have found myself trying to identify, define, and refocus every little thing that comes along that makes me happy. I've been referring to them as my "salvations." These may or may not be similar to the "presidents" my little brother had when he was a kid. They both pop up at night, and they both left an air of mystery in their wake. In the case of my salvations, this mystery is "why didn't I think of this before?" and "what are the chances this should pop up right now?"

An example would be one of the countless times the shuffle on my ipod has read my mind and played a song that, had I been producing the movie of my life, I would have picked to soundtrack that moment.

Or the fact that the Wangsimni mall plays classical Western music on their loudspeakers, and on the last two occasions I've come out of the E-Mart (think Meijer) at that mall - desperately homesick after wading through aisles of shopping that is nothing like Warsaw or Ann Arbor - I've heard that and remembered that people are people and I'm ok.

Or the day that I discovered the itty bitty rice cake bakery right next door to my school, where a square of cake is only 800 won and the lady who owns the plays always has a huge smile for me when I escape from my kids for the 20 odd minutes of breaktime every morning.

Or the first time I lugged my computer over to the dazzlingly comfortable Cafe Bene and realized they have wifi as smoothly accessible as my apartment, where I can watch Battlestar Galactica on Megavideo and not worry about using up the 72 minutes granted my IP address that would mean heather and Rebekah wouldn't be able to watch their TV shows. And the caramel macchiatos are amazing.

My salvations come to me in bits and pieces, like debris from the wreck that is just now making its way over the Pacific toward me. And when I see one I grab it and I hold onto it. They are my cottage evening fireflies and I am the greedy child with the jar full of grass (because all insects eat grass, right?)

Spending my fresh and steaming paycheck on deliciously Western styled shopping in Myeong Dong today was just another salvation. I don't care that it seems ludicrous to move across the world and then spend several hours in Zara and Forever 21, ignoring the awesomeness of the edgy Korean boutiques. I tried the Korean boutiques - well, the lingerie ones anyway. I am just about officially a C-cup now. And those of you who don't get the gravity of the statement should know that 2 months ago I was a DD. Trying to find a bra that was even a decent C almost reduced me to tears. I'd rather stick to my Mangos and my Gaps than try to take on the ludicrously petite world of Korean fashion any day.

Funny thing is, most Korean women aren't anywhere near petite anymore.