seoul-mates

Posted on | January 26, 2010 | 2 Comments

i reckon i could live here.

it’s immaculately clean everywhere….no litter at all.
people drive considerately.
there is no honking and swerving and changing lanes.
the streets downtown are wide spacious boulevards.
there is minimal pollution in the air……the sky was bright blue, even if it was sub-zero temps most of the day.
everyone is polite and pleasant.
the strawberries and cherries are INSANELY fragrant and sweet. i’ve never had such good strawberries in my life.
and you can buy great big packets of kimchee and wasabi flavoured toasted nori sheets for practically nothing.

i’ve had a very cool day; quite literally, at first.
for the first time in my life, i headed out wearing a hat…woolen socks…two layers of silk knit….a cashmere pashmina…and a jacket….and i needed it all.
i took a very brisk frozen-nosed stroll to the hyundai department store and did some window shopping. i took some photos of frozen decorative kale in planters, and some surreal sculpture outside the posco building.
then i dived down the escalators to the enormous coex mall that rabbit warrens along for kilometres and has simply everything.
i stopped for a fresh mango juice, which was probably insane seeing as
how they are falling off the trees at home, and imported at enormous expense here.
after a couple of hours of people-watching, i headed back to the hotel for my lunch meeting and then on to the college offices to finally check the equipment and raw materials for tomorrow.
i was organised enough to bring a selection of electrical adaptor plugs, so i can power up my bamix immersion blender.
i could make soap with a pot and a broken stick if i had to, but it is nice to have familiar equipment when you are demonstrating and you want it to be simple and nice.

my host and i had a very interesting chat about the vibrational energies of essential oils….he is doing a lot of research into the personalities of the oils.
he actually gave me a sort of tarot card reading, but using cards with essential oils on them.
VERY COOL!!
i asked “where will my company be in five year’s time?”
and i shuffled the cards, then turned up patchouli.
he said patchouli is very grounded, very close to the earth, very stable and very comfortable.
it also blends well with everything, so he said this means my business can stretch into new directions all the time and thrive….because of the solid, grounded foundation.
it sounds great to me!

i had a sniff through many bottles of essential oils, sourced directly from distillers all over the world.
he has been travelling and buying for a long time and everything was absolutely top-quality.
i have never….never….smelt such delicious peppermint, aniseed, rose and geranium.
the peppermint was extraordinary….so sweet and fresh…..just divine.
and the rose otto and rose absolute came directly from bulgaria, where he leads a group of students every year at rose harvesting time.

i offered to help pack and carry stuff downstairs to be transported to the lecture rooms, but was told, no, the men can do that.
i tell you, this place is marvellous!
so i came back to the hotel, made a few phone calls, then sashayed downstairs for a massage and then a bath in a huge hotpool made of hinoki wood. very relaxing.
now i am upstairs, eating seaweed again, and thinking about a very early night in preparation for tomorrow.

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hi, i'm patti flynn

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