That's the night that the lights went out in Nowon

At 5:32 AM (according to coworker Charlie, who was awake), our apartment building in Seoul lost electricity and water.

Compare/Contrast time!

Initial reaction to power loss, US Midwest: Must be a tree down someplace.
Initial reaction to power loss, Seoul: Did we forget to pay our power bill?

Second reaction to power loss, US Midwest: Never had one, since it was always the trees.
Second reaction to power loss, Seoul: Oh GOD, the WAR started.

I realize that I'm a bit of a fruitcake, but I want to point out that coworker Shelby experienced the EXACT SAME SEQUENCE of power loss reaction. Justin, of course, thinks it's a corporate conspiracy: our landlord fell behind on his bills and the power company cut his service at an inconvenient time for the tenants to put the squeeze on him. As if Kim Jong-Il has nothing to do with this! He's so naive.

For the heart-attacking moms reading this blog, I'm joking, of course. As everything else appears to be running normally, I think we can say that war is no more imminent than it's been for the rest of the time we've been here. My toilet is perhaps less strategically significant to North Korea than it is to me. (Although they eat kimchi, too, so who can say for certain?)

Anyway, it's been weeks since we lost heat or internet... I think it was about time for one of these, don't you?