A snowy morning in Seoul

White, white, white, all white.

What a lovely, lovely sight!

What a sparkling morning delight!

I wrote that poem(?) in one minute as I watched, from the window of my 14th floor room at the Marriott Hotel, snow flakes gently falling, falling, falling, covering the buildings and the trees and the streets and every nook and cranny of Seoul.

It was 7:30 Monday morning, Dec. 8, barely 12 hours after we arrived in that South Korean capital to cover the Asian launch of Britney Spears’ latest album, In the Zone (released by BMG Records), which carries sexy dance numbers whose lyrics are oh-so-sexually-graphic that they might give some of Britney’s conservative fans (are there any left?) a pleasant shock.

I was told that winter in Seoul was terribly cold, much more so than winter in the US or Europe, due to the Siberian wind. I went to Seoul with my Samsonite bag packed full with thick sweaters and thick jackets but they turned out to be puny against the bitter cold which shook our knees and made our lips quiver as we walked two blocks from Marriott to the Pizza Hut for a quick late dinner an hour after we arrived Sunday night. On the way back, we stopped at Mini-Stop for hot tea (for our shaking knees and quivering lips) and to buy bonnets and gloves. Still not enough but... good enough!

When I woke up the next morning, I was unprepared for the big surprise waiting for me. Yawning, with face unwashed, I drew the curtain and, lo and behold, there it was, a spectacle in white, all white, a lovely sight, a morning delight! I grabbed by instamatic and recorded that beautiful sight for posterity. I won’t dig into The American Heritage Dictionary for a string of adjectives to describe that scene; I will let the photographic "evidence" on this page speak for itself.

My first impulse was to rush out and touch the snow, catch the snow flakes and wind them around little sticks and turn them into cotton buds or simply stroll around like those Koreans in black trenchcoats and black boots coming and going, going up and down the overpass that looked like a miniature Golden Gate Bridge. It was bitter cold, remember, and I did rush out the next day but I didn’t catch the snow flakes because they had stopped falling, although I did stroll, half-jogging to shake off the cold, and finally did go up and down that overpass which looked like a miniature Golden Gate Bridge. The snow was melting and – careful, careful! – it was slippery when wet.

I remembered the first time I saw snow in 1980. It was in New Jersey where I was a guest at the house of my late friend Rusty Quinton who would usually leave home for work very early and leave me written instructions/directions, including tokens for the subway, on how to get to his office on 42nd Street in Manhattan.

I woke up late, as usual, and the first thing I saw were what I thought was a gentle rain of cotton buds. Rubbing my eyes, I looked again. Snow! I looked for the squirrels that disturbed my sleep days earlier and they were nowhere to be found. The snow must have driven them to their hideouts. I opened the window and caught the snow flakes and they felt like marshmallow. I actually tasted them. Nice. Tasted like the rain water that we drank back in Las Navas, Northern Samar.

The one in Seoul was my second close shave with snow and it felt, as in sex, like the first time everytime, memorable, wonderful, exciting and totally uplifting, with a lingering euphoric effect.

During that Seoul trip, I was with BMG big boss Rudy Tee and his wife Myrna (who are perfect travelling companions); Mario Joson, BMG marketing manager; Andre Alvarez and Mila Labendia, MYX producer and associate producer respectively; Kristine Misa, product manager of Globe Wireless Group, who lent me a unit that didn’t work – help, Manny P., help! – because the Globe Manila office cut off my line even if I paid my bills on time, even way ahead of the "due date"; and Flordeliza Rosales, winner of the BMG-sponsored Britney Spears promo contest.

There would be a presscon Monday after lunch and a showcase at night and then the TV/print interview the next day, so I planned to explore whatever I could of Seoul (which I first visited last year with Paolo Bediones during the Men in Black II junket with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones). I wanted to make a quick trip to Everland, visit the Korea House, ride the Han River Pleasure Boat and try my bargaining power at the night market. I didn’t get to do any of them but I had no regrets.

I wanted to banner today’s piece Seoul-Searching or Heart and Seoul or Seoul of a Beautiful City, but other journalists have used those hackneyed titles, haven’t they?

No, I didn’t get into the heart of Seoul (too lazy to venture out because the bitter cold forced me to stay under the covers in my hotel room with Raymond Carver’s book of short stories). But that snowy morning was enough for me to get a good glimpse of Seoul and inspire me to write that poem(?).

I expected to see more snow the next morning and the next but I saw only the faint sun breaking through the thin clouds. I dreamed of snow the three nights I was in Seoul and it was a beautiful dream.

White, white, white, all white!

What a lovely, lovely sight!

What a sparkling morning delight!

(Note: Watch for my Conversation with Britney Spears tomorrow, Dec. 14.)

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