(Day 134) Seoul Nambu Correctional Facility-day 39 D-117

sit-ups	walk	chair-lifts
100	2 km	80

There's a new menu today. I'll review the next seven days and refer back here for the rest of the month. For a change of pace, I'll describe, critique and rate the meals, rather than just listing what they are. So, without further adieu...

Breakfast	yogurt & coffee
I buy the coffee, the yogurt was a part of the menu today.
Lunch This is one of the few meals I'll eat with the rice because of the curry. It gets bonus marks for the curry, but demerits for the soup and second type of kimchi. Do we really need to have 2 kinds of kimchi? Isn't one enough? The soup makes up for the water and slimy seaweed by including chicken.	rice & kimchi shredded radish kimchi slimy seaweed soup with chicken yellow curry
1 for overall satisfaction, 1 for curry, 1/2 for chicken in the soup, -1 for slimy seaweed.
Dinner This meal loses lots of marks for having 4 out of 4 dishes that are red. The Chinese bun was barely warm, and stale, and like all things made with kidney beans in Korean, way too sweet. To it's credit, the vegetable soup had lots of veggies and egg, but the red pepper spice is bland and a culinary overload when combined with kimchi (made with red pepper) and fish cake, onion and cabbage in a red pepper sauce.	rice & kimchi spicy, watery vegetable soup Chinese bun with red bean filling fish cake, cabbage and onion in red pepper sauce
Because, on their own, all the dishes are good, but all together, it is overload and bland. It's like eating a tomato sandwich with tomato soup and a glass of tomato juice.

The week generally goes by fairly quickly, but the weekends are a real drag. There is no paper or exercise on Sunday, so I am in myself for 48 hours and forced to re-read the newspapers over again for lack of anything better to do. The TV is on from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. but it's mostly human-interest shows, quiz shows or music variety shows. On Saturday night, there is a movie shown and sometimes it even in English, making it the highlight of the weekend, except when it’s not in English, which is actually more likely.

JU claimed he would visit every week. He hasn't. I haven't seen him in a month now and no one else visited here, which is rather depressing. Contact with the outside world is craved and more cherished more than anything else in the world. An inmate's entire life revolves around the hope of mail or visitors.

So, nothing to look forward to tomorrow-- no newspapers, no exercise period outside, no mail, no visitors, shitty TV options, no more books to read... All I'm left with is writing and drawing and I'm feeling a little burnt out from both. The same routine and environment day in and day out is totally uninspiring, too.