what time is it now...

ah... it's 7:32 am local time here in stockholm... too early for anything...
got back from korea last saturday to new york... then only 4 days later, i'm here... no wonder my sense of time is all screwed up... when i got to korea, i could sleep only 4 hours for the first 3 days which wasn't too bad... then back in new york, i thought i didn't have any jet lag but then on the second day, couldn't sleep for something like 28 hours... then passed out... was so freaked out to see how dark it was when i woke up... thinking i missed my flight to paris...
then flew to paris the following night... got there around noon... stopped by security because of my giant cello case... had 9-hour lay over in paris so went to musee pompidou... was a bit disappointing since one of their modern art floors was closed... had yves klein special... too bad i couldn't understand french since the most interesting thing was the documentary clips on his painting using female nudes... all i could understand was ceci bon...! then there were some nice video installations... bruce nauman, joseph cornell, marcell duchamp, man ray and so on...
then went back to charles de gaulle to catch my flight to stockholm... de gaulle is such a weird airport... it felt almost as big as heathrow without any real reason... then i had to go through security twice just because there was no bathroom in near the gate... then got into stockholm late at night...
then one of my favorite things... eating breakfast in foreign countries... especially there are two things i love about having breakfast in europe... which is plain yogurt and soft boiled eggs... and i absolutely loved eating soft boiled eggs with caviar paste for breakfast... salty, sweet, soft... yum... if it wasn't too difficult to bring liquid/gel stuff on planes, i'd buy 3 tubes of it... oh, well...
then last night, played with lindha with two other fabulous string players, nina de heney and anna lindhal...was even better that i expected... got goosebumps at one point which is a great thing... played at this cool looking venue called kulturehuset in the middle of downtown and the whole thing went really well... and coming from me, that's a lot... heh heh heh...
today i'll explore the city a bit... go into the old town area... so far the city looks and feels great... and not too cold which is... you know, a bit scary...

home... and my grandma...

it's been about 6 days since i came to korea for the first time in more than 8 years... i wasn't even planning on coming until the 30th of december, the day after my last blog, when i found out how sick my grandma was... so got the tickets right away and i'm here now... unfortunately she's very ill and cannot even really speak... but i think she recognizes that i'm here to see her... she's gotten so small and thin... well, she was always tiny but always (sometimes annoyingly) full of energy and active throughout her life... but now she's suffering from pancreatic cancer which doesn't show the symptoms until the last stage, plus complication with diabetes... so our family pretty have accepted that she probably doesn't have so much time left... but what can we do, that's how life goes... just wish it wasn't so painful for her...
it's funny because i spent lots of time with my grandma when i lived in korea but we never really got along... since i was living in a different city from my hometown to attend arts schools from when i was 12, and she was my guardian... and as you know when you are a teenager, you rebel against anybody, especially your family... so i'm sure i wasn't all that nice to her... but in korean sentiment, there's something called "jeong" which can be loosely translated into growing fond of someone... and there are two types of "jeong"; one from only good memories you had with someone and the other from bad ones... and definitely my grandma and i grew fond of each other through many unpleasant memories... then now i'm older and more capable of thinking of other person's feeling as well, all i feel toward to my grandma is love and warm feelings...
so far she hasn't spoke a word in front of me... but once in a while she stares right at me and i think she's looking at me... and i'm sure she has a lot to say to me, probably most of them complains, especially for not having been back for such a long time... the last thing i heard from her was when i spoke to her on the phone on december 30th and she said she missed me... and i told her i did... at the moment, i am just glad at least i was able to hear her saying that and also i was able to tell her the same... and that's enough for now...