The Weather
		I heard that winters are very, very dry, but the winter of 1997 must have been an odd year because it rained rather frequently. 1998's winter, however, seems to be living up to its reputation. Sometimes I wake up at 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning because I am no longer able to breathe. I've lost all power of speech and my throat feels like it closed in on itself and then got glued shut. Drawing a breath of that icy, dry air is painful. Keep in mind that I'm in the southern part of South Korea. I imagine Seoul is much worse. A humidifier is an expensive, but necessary investment. Either that, or you'll have to do a load of laundry every night so the air can absorb the water from the wet clothes rather than suck you dry of all your bodily fluids. I've been through two summers here. My first was supposedly extraordinarily hot--I thought it charmingly cool. The summer of 1998 was admitted to be unnaturally cool, I had to wear a jacket and pants every day in July and in August. So, if you are from Oklahoma or an area equally hot during the summertime, you'll be all right. If you're from Montana or Cananda, you might think you will melt. If you are a snow lover, bring lots of photos to remember it by. It doesn't snow much here and when it does, it melts almost before hitting the ground. It's so rare, especially in the southern part of the country, that everyone gets a little giddy and hyper and I almost expect them to all break out dancing in perfect rhythm with each other, like in a musical. Snow IS more common in the northern provinces, but nothing like Oklahoma.