The Big Fifty-Five!

Looking to the Future

I turned 55 yesterday, still mobile but feeling old, and by a happy coincidence was invited -- along with my lovely wife, Sun-Ae Hwang -- to share lunch paid for by a friend from my days at Korea University, Professor Suh Ji-moon, expert in English literature who also translates literary works of Korean into English.

We ate at a 'green' restaurant called Seven Springs -- by which is meant wellsprings of water, I presume, rather than the green season repeated seven times -- a restaurant located on the underground level of the Hungkuk Life Insurance Building, easily located by its trademark statue out front, Jonathan Borofsky's gigantic steel Hammering Man, who is constantly pounding away noiselessly like clockwork on a job never quite done, as if only to pass the time.

In the photo above, you see me and a friend -- a rather colorful character, I must admit -- in the lobby of the Hungkuk Life Insurance Building. My friend is seated on the Cologne Pagoda constructed by Kang Ik-Joong (강익중) and is using specially made binoculars to peer into my future, but said it was like seeing through a glass darkly, so I don't know what to expect in the next few years, though I anticipate changes.

At any rate, a belated Happy Birthday to me! Enjoy your time here . . .