On Saturday afternoon, I showered and shaved. Put on a sweater and pants. Grabbed the phone, the wallet, the keys, the iPod and walked down to the subway. It's a short walk, but just outside of my new apartment building is an intersection and looking down the side street you can see Dobong mountain. The fall colors have really started going in earnest these last few weeks and the side of the mountain is yellow, red, brown... though it was a bit hazy it was still really beautiful. The sun shone weakly, on the sidewalk a ginko glowed golden and kaleidoscoped shade down on the umbrella set over a music vendor's cart.

The subway rocked and jolted a few old guys around, while they dangled from the handles. A girl crossed and recrossed her legs, absently chewing on a bit of hair while reading a thick book. Next to her some middle school boys ogled a PSP, which was making video game noises. Some girls got on and did a short scuttle, grabbing each other's elbows as the train shuddered to a halt, yelping as they tried to remain balanced in their heels. "I-go! I-go!" I transfered with a crush of people through Dongdaemun Stadium, which has been decorated with a potato chip advertisment which impressively covers every square inch of wall space, all the pillars and stairwells, wraps around food stalls and shoe vendors; it's even color-coded. The background for line four is blue, line five is purple and line two green, with models seductively eating potoato chips and guys savoring the crunchyness.

Line two wrapped around City Hall and disgorged early-evening partiers in Sinchon and Hongdae. I transfered again, jostled by ancy ajummas and meandering around slow-moving toddlers. By the time I popped out at World Cup Stadium, my cell phone already had a message from the girl I'm trying to woo (I'm kind of worthless when it comes to wooing, so I'm making a special effort here.) wondering where I was, as she'd been waiting at exit 2 for nearly 10 minutes.

Out in the sunshine, up the escalator, there were high school kids sitting in groups on the stairs laughing. In the plaza next to Carrefour, couples walked aimlessly around. In front of the FamilyMart a couple of business-suited ajussis sat at a plastic table drinking cold Hite Prime, arguing and spitting. My date and I walked around the stadium and into the park. There were lots of kids zooming around on scooters and rollerblades. Some old women sat at a park bench, their curly hair ruffling in the breeze.

All around us, the trees were dusting the ground with colorful leaves. "They're 'dan pung'," my date informed me as I tried to make some sort of "autumn is pretty" sentence in Korean. We walked over a bridge and into a small cluster of trees. Some girls were making cute faces and taking pictures of each other. An older couple sat on some newspapers, sharing a kimbab and smiling at a small child rooting around in the fallen leaves. "It reminds me of when I was little," I said. "My dad would rake up all the leaves in our back yard, then pick me up and throw me into them." I was smiling as I remembered the itchy bits of leaves that would get stuck underneath my sweaters, in my hair. We walked along a meandering dirt path, stopping now and then to take pictures of the trees or of people. Holding the camera, my date took a picture of sawgrass-turned-copper in the colder air. I wrapped my arms around her and adjusted the zoom, pressing down on her finger with mine to take the shot again. Sly devil...

Then back, through the park, into Carrefour for some dinner things. A bunch of onions, a cucumber, bell pepper, chicken breasts, packaged marinade, rice... then out, down into the subway again. "Will we maybe go to Samgakji and then transfer?" "No, we should go back to Hapjeong, then up, then transfer at Dongdaemun." "What if we go to Yeongdungpo, then to Eujiro 5-ga?" Staring at the map as the subway trundled along, filled with kimchi-soju addled people and smartly dressed kids ready for an evening out. Sleepy looking office workers who'd just finished their day and middle school kids squatting next to the handicapped seats pouring over a fashion magazine. A couple of tall guys laughing quietly at some shared joke. A woman struggling with a small child in a poofy yellow coat, sound asleep; a dead weight in her arms.

"Can you cut the onion while I deal with the chicken?" Back in my apartment, side-by-side in the kitchen getting dinner together, I opened a bottle of wine and set the rice to boil. Looking over, my date, struggling with the subtlties of dicing veggies again I stood behind her, my hands on hers, moving the knife in more efficient motions. Hair tickling my nose. The dinner came together, in the end. The wine finished, hand-holding accomplished, we called it a night. She darted out into the street to flag down a cab. I turned on the water in the kitchen to do the dishes. On the floor, a few yellow ginko leaves lay from where they fell out of my pocket. I pressed them into a book, watched the traffic glide in the street down below, smiling at how well everything seems to be going.