By chance, at the beginning of November I realized that my neighbor in the apartment building just beneath mine is attempting to sprout an onion and three tubers that look a bit like sweet potatoes (on top of the exhaust fan for the A/C). I decided I wanted to document their growth. So far they have survived two light snows but I'm certain she will bring them indoors soon so I wanted to post them. When she does I may see if I can convince her to let me see them again. This will require me to study Korean far more assiduously than I have so far. The onion has split a bit further apart in the last two weeks and there is a slight increase in the root clusters of the tubers. I am very bad at keeping plants alive so I am living vicariously through this neighbor's success.

We live in what is essentially an apartment farm - numerous buildings with small apartments packed in together. There are small playgrounds and trees sprinkled between them but the overall sense you get in the neighborhood is that of the lifeless weight of concrete. In spite of this, the neighborhood still encourages more life than the kinds of concrete jungles found in the U.S.. I've seen a few square metres turned into a patch of cabbages between the road and the side of a slum building. The growth of living things is insidious and surprising.