Trailing Spouse

Blaine has been in Seoul, South Korea, since Tuesday to meet with experts and high-level government types to scout for story ideas. He planned to come home today (Friday) but was held over in Seoul for the joy of waking up at 4 a.m. on Sunday to slam together a deadline story about the return of South Koreans Christians who were held hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Then he'll hop on one of the 17 daily flights between Seoul and Tokyo and be home by 7 p.m. or so.

This means that Lucinda, Arno and I have been together all week by ourselves, and I took them tonight to a typically small Japanese restaurant for tempura (shrimp, eggplant, sweet potato, squash and mushroom), rice and soup.

We also tried a new tofu dish: several blocks of tofu were delivered in a hot clear soup, with a side dish of shaved bacon (I think) and thinly sliced scallions and a small bowl of tempura-ish soy sauce. The waitress watched me fumble around with it and came over to explain that I should lift the tofu with a little strainer into the tempura sauce, add in bacon and scallions, mix and eat.

It was fantastic. Lucinda loved it, too, but Arno didn't like the squishiness of it. At least they love tempura and rice - our Japanese equivalent of mac n cheese.