A moment of silence.

Every day when I walk to the older kids' AP school, my tastebuds are tantalized by the smell of barbequed chicken goodness. There is a woman who owns a chicken barbeque stand--she sells regular and hot-n-spicy chicken on wooden skewers. You can buy one for a dollar and they're really good. We sometimes pick up a few on our way home, for a post-class snack. One of our students, William, can eat ten of them with no problem in the ten-minute break between classes. Sometimes, when we have our windows open in the school, you can catch a whiff of that chicken wafting in...and it's quite distracting.

But no more.

As is the case with many restaurants (and businesses) in Korea, today we walked home and the chicken barbeque shack was no more. Empty. Kaputzky. It is a very sad day. We have no idea what happened--they seemed to be doing extremely good business. They left no note, no explanation. There's just no closure. It's hard to think of life without grilled meat on a stick.

Our friend Ara tells us that this happens all the time and we should get used to it. In fact, he very much champions a "carpe diem" attitude in Korea--if you see something that interests you...try it..buy it. You never know when you might see it again. I've never considered myself much of an impulse buyer, but after being burned once, I can begin to understand his logic. We're already witnessed several places go out of business--they just weren't places we loved this much, so it didn't really matter.

I remember when I was little and the 7-Eleven by our house on Main St., where we always used to go to get Slurpees and candy on our way to and from Northside Pool, closed down and turned into a chiropractor's office. Yeah. This feels a little like that.