September. Summer breaks in September in the Land of the Morning Sparkle. I don't care for the traditional definitions of the seasons, American or Korean. If it is hot and you sweat without exercising, it is summer.
If you are from California or have spent any length of time there, you know that the seasons are not predictable. I was at Disneyland two days before Christmas one year and it was really hot, short pants and short sleeve shirt weather. Summers in Northern California can be very cold. I miss the unpredictable weather.
This summer has been mild in Korea. Cold winds from the North blow blah blah blah...I couldn't care less the reason, but I am thankful for it none the less. Korea's weather is indeed predicable. Since inventing the four season over 5000 years of culture ago, the weather is enervating in its predictability. The monsoon season comes in June, July and August are unbearable with heat and humidity, January will be the coldest month. The air will be dry. Yellow sand will come in spring, heavy or not, it will come.
I love winter. I truly do. I believe that this stems from two factors: I would visit my grandparents in winter and winter meant skiing at Squaw Valley, site of the 1960 Winter Olympics. Squaw Valley. Vaurnet cat eyes. Mother Karen pullover. Jeans sprayed with waterproof spray.
"Dude, there is fresh powder all over Tahoe, lets go tomorrow." Leave the house at 5am, skip school, drive to Tahoe, get back at dinnertime. Parents would ask you how your day was at school and you'd reply "good," raccoon tan on your face.
My point is, gentle reader, I fucking hate summer in Korea. Summer is California is a fantasy world of cool people, the beach, a few brews, girls in bikinis, and it lasted forever. I remember one summer when I was working in Beverley Hills. I quit my job and hung out in Malibu at the beach. I would hang out at Zuma or Dan Blocker. There were these pretty high school girls who would invariably be there everyday. They took a lot of pictures of each other. I remember thinking how cherished those pictures and those memories would become for them. Beautiful girls growing up in the coolest place on the planet...California.
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