Feasts of all kinds

Oh guys, I am seven shades of knackered. I’m drinking a green tea latte and wearing jeans and a big soft jumper and thinking of my clean, crisp white hotel sheets, of closing my eyes and letting sleep cover me.

I woke today at 6am and drew the curtains to dawn washing watercolour pinks and blues and greys over across Seoul’s mountains and glass skyscrapers. I decided since I was up I’d go for a run. The Somerset Palace is basically a serviced apartment block and while it is mind-blowingly fancy by my usual travelling standards (I used to cycle passed the Hanoi Somerset on the way to my own less than salubrious digs) the empty, stretching corridors have an eerie feel of the The Shining about them. That said, at some point I’m going to go have a quick jacuzzi on the rooftop looking at the thousand sparkling lights that make up Seoul at 11pm at night. The life of an author isn’t glamorous but sometimes you do get to have a rooftop jacuzzi in Seoul. The run was good but I must remember not to sing aloud when I run in the hotel gym. It is deathly quiet – except for me doing my asthmatic version of Prince’s ‘If I was your boyfriend’.

Today was meet, greet, feed day. We met the incredibly lovely and hardworking British Council staff who’ve organised everything for this trip. Outside the British Council building (which is also home to lots of other businesses) there was a protest. Men wearing matching orange bibs and chanting songs and, just beside them, police holding riot shields. Mostly people were smiling though and it put me in mind of girls and boys taking opposite ends of a school disco dance floor, eyeing each other for later.

We went for lunch – I am too tired to look up the spelling of the dish (Bimlipbap? Bamlimbac?) but it was rice, mushrooms and bitter greens and delicious. Other things happened…nothing you’ll want to spend time reading about but they were all fine. I had a nap – which you probably also don’t want to read about but a lady has to bridge – and then got taken to a beautiful wooden temple. It was filled with three giant golden Buddhas , the vast ceiling entirely covered with colourful paper lanterns. Outside a monk swung a rounded log, hitting a drum that sang right through the temple, right through my ribs. Like a temple full of saffron robed monks I visited in Laos or the Chinese one where people burned wads of fake dollars I used to go to in Hanoi, I hope that moment is kept somewhere. I want to remember. But I know how fickle memory can be.

For dinner we all, the British Council organisers and my fellow writers (the ace Tim Bowler and Julia Goulding), went and had a temple food feast. There were over ten different courses with ginseng root with honey, deep fried lotus root, acorn jelly, sticky rice wrapped in lotus flower, sesame soup and rice punch. Every course was more interesting and delicious than the last. The whole meal was a gift for my belly and tongue and curious head…though I became a little embarrassed by my boundless enthusiasm ‘wow! Amazing! This ones incredible!’ as though I’d only eaten cold Readybrek for the last thirty-two years.

Everyone is lovely. I really mean that. I have experienced so much kindness already in my short time here. Seoul feel like an enchanted island to me at the moment.

The next week goes like this: tomorrow I’ll go watch Tim and Julia at a YA conference, Wednesday I’ll do a talk and Q&A at the British Council, Thursday I’ll head to Gongju and do a talk on writing from life (I am nervous about this…I am always nervous about talks), Friday I’ll prepare like mad because on Saturday I’ll be performing a scene from the Tony Hogan one-woman show at Paju Booksori (I am very nervous about that because I’ve no idea how that will work with translation and it’ll be my first time ever performing a scene from it). On Sunday Tim and Julia will return to London and I’ll begin my three week writing residency. I am nervous about my events, I am very, very tired tonight, I feel like this is all a strange dream but I also know this whole trip is a wonderful gift. Food for the soul (I just typed that Seoul by accident) and for the belly too.

Ok, sleep must happen now. Night, night. Oh and look, here’s my name in Korean…