Don't pay attention to the details.

Don't pay attention to the details. That must be the manta of this place. A veneer over rough-hewn reality and gilt over a bit of lead. If you don't look too closely it is the very definition of luxury. IF your gaze lingers in one place too long though, you will see that whoever decorate the place had the dictionary open and took things a bit too literally.

But before I come to this place, let me step back to the antithesis of luxury: my stay at the Hotel Gallery a few night's ago.

The lovely HO EL GALLE Y in Cheongju.

The room was clearly not designed for long stays. When I checked in they seemed more surprised that I was actually staying all night than they were that I was canceling my second night's reservation to go to another hotel an hour and a half north of Cheongju. You can see below the two hooks on the wall which passed for the closet in my room.

The room technically had air conditioning but after seeing the cakes of dust in the vents I was not foolish enough to fall into that trap.

My room was "non-smoking" but they had forgotten to remove the ash tray when they converted the room to be non-smoking for my reservation so I pulled my window open to try to air out the room as best I could. Once the sun went down, I learned that I was in a no-win situation: with the window closed and covered with the curtain I could not breath and with the window open my room was bathed in the neon light from the brothel next-door's sign.

I cannot actually confirm that it was a brothel but below I'll show the sign by day and you can be the judge.

I don't read Korean but I think I've got a pretty shrewd idea of what a neon sign like this means when it's lit up like Time Square at 3 o'clock in the morning.

I wore my clothes to bed that night and I did not sleep in. As soon as I felt it was a reasonable time to head to the office I got up and hopped in the shower. There was no shower curtain, but frankly I didn't care if I got the bathroom floor wet; it could probably use a wash anyway.

I am used to ducking to get under shower heads in Korea but it seemed like they put the "jacuzzi" tub over whatever tub was there before. When I stood in the tub I needed to duck to avoid hitting my head on the ceiling.

When I got out of the shower I grabbed a towel. It was a hand towel. I dropped it to use as a bathmat. I grabbed the next towel. It was also a hand towel. I grabbed the third and last towel. It was also a hand towel. I dried myself with the two hand towels and got the hell out of there. I did not stop in the first floor cafe for the breakfast of canned noodles.

Getting to the office long before anyone in Korea goes to work, I dropped my luggage in a conference room and went to the Angel-In-Us-Coffee a few blocks down the street toward the bus terminal. The coffee was nothing to brag about but I did see that Sarah's favorite car (the Saturn Sky) lives on in Korea under the moniker of the Opel GT.

Opel GT, Saturn Sky, Vauxhall vx220 or Pontiac Solstace?

I slept so uncomfortably at the Gallery that I still have a crick in my neck two days later but that night I was at least recovered enough to go out to dinner to a place where the sushi chef filleted the tuna's head at the table for us for our third course of tuna sashimi.

There was also a fair amount of both soju and mecju.

One more day of work after that, another work dinner with soju, mecju and somec and it was time for me to head to the airport. Bill signed me into the Asiana lounge while we waited for our flights. I will end up at ~49200 miles with United since the start of August which leaves me just shy of being able to check into the lounges on my own for my next flight to Korea. I've had another 50k or so miles this year, unfortunately they've been scattered across other carriers rather haphazardly.

So here I am in the definition of forced luxury: the Asiana lounge in Seoul. Perhaps other lounges are the same and I never noticed but today I looked more closely at the bookshelves that surround the area where we are sitting. There re 73 books in each of the 15 book cases. There are only three different titles though: Sketches by Boz by Dickens in two sizes and three different color bindings, King Henry VIII with no author listed (perhaps Shakespeare's play?) and Image Collections claiming to be by Agatha Christie and containing The Homecoming and Lost in the Himalayas. Every case has these same three books in various sizes and bindings to give the appearance of a vast collection. Interspersed are a bunch of the same plates, the same pieces of driftwood and the same vases.

Likewise the bar does not appear to have an end to their supply of Jack Daniel's, Gordon's and some sort of vodka but not much else in the way of selection. But as it turns out, I might complain for a while but am easy to please. I've learned it's easy enough to let the details blur and ignore what doesn't matter. I'm enjoying my fake library and real gin and tonic. Soon I'll be on an airplane and be home in Boston.

I can't wait to be home with Sarah and Freddie and to catch the tail end of the best time of the year - for running and for life -- in Boston.

Cheers!