Our first snow!

It's snowing!!  December 1st, as if right on cue, Seoul's first snow.  I'm sitting here at our dining room table (which, based on the number of times we actually have eaten here, should more appropriately be called my "writing table"), hot tea brewing and listening to opera on Pandora (thanks to "hola", which tricks my computer to thinking we're still in the US).  The Verdi is a bit dramatic perhaps, but somehow seems the appropriate way to kick off the winter season.

All last week, the blog that was forever in my head but never made its way to paper (screen?) was called "The Longest Autumn".  I returned from India (with temperatures in the 70s) prepared for frigid weather in Seoul, only to find the temperature shockingly mild, with my street looking like this:

On an early summer weekend trip to the Hamptons last May (thanks Airbnb!), we "drew" our ideal apartment and neighborhood in the sand.  In many ways, it was actually the turning point for me around truly getting excited about Seoul and the life that we could purposefully build together there.  We drew nature all around, with the squiggly-line river on the right and the very realistic-looking mountains that our apartment looked out onto.

As it turns out, we got this and more, with our apartment a ten minute walk from the river in one direction, the lake in a different direction, and Olympic Park (Seoul's equivalent of Central Park) in a different direction.  Here's what my walk to the park looked like last week:

And now picture everything covered in snow!  What a difference a week makes.  As I've been writing this, the falling snowflakes have gotten bigger, swirling around frenetically and making me want to cover myself up in our blanket and take a mid-morning nap (to be fair, this isn't just any blanket; as Tyler says: "it feels like a gigantic teddy bear is giving us a warm hug!")

Seoul is our first city living abroad with truly four seasons (besides hot, hotter, really hot, monsoon).  It's been really fun rediscovering old pleasures (jumping on crunchy fallen leaves) and marrying new traditions with old... 

And so with that, the only thing left to say is: Welcome Winter!!  Please be brief...