It's probably from travelling for a month - staying out late and eating irregularly. I've been swabbing the inside of my nose out with Zinc each day for a week. And drinking Vitamin C tablets! But five days ago we lost the remote control for the air conditioner in this hotel room, and the AC unit up in the wall has been blowing cold air hard on us as we slept ever since. We can't shut it off! And then we drank Brian's contact lenses by accident. So it's been lively. And unhealthy.

Except perhaps yesterday morning; I finally got Brian into the bathhouse below our hotel. We showered and soaked with the other Korean men somehow able to luxuriate in water in the middle of a Monday. Having been there before - I felt slightly bold and familiar. I requested a "te mele" for us - a Korean body scrub. Armed with a stiff, somewhat scratchy towel, this gentleman in boxer shorts scrubbed over all of our skin as we lay naked before him on a rubber table. I watched him work over my arms - his stiff towel pulled off my first few layers of skin. Shortly, aftter just a bit of scrubbing, there were piles of gray, dead old Justin laying there on the table. Astonishing to lose things you couldn't even see! Am I constantly a little bit gray?

After this Korean body scrub, I was a little bit pink. Relief came as warm water was tossed over my exfoliated body, and he finished up by covering me completely with suds, soaping and massaging my skin. What a wonderful twenty minutes.

Now Brian is gone. I have less than 24 hours left in Seoul - two meetings, and perhaps a chance to keep these sniffles, coughing and sneezing down to a minimum before the long flight back to America. An ass-pocket full of photos and a boy looking forward to a long time in his bed.