Rafting (trip part I.)

            Beep, beep, beep, beep beep beeepebbeeeeppebbbeeeeeep; ugh, and then I'm dragging myself out of bed at 630 in the morning to go hop a bus to Gangwon-Do province, a rafting trip and, wait for it, bungee jumping.  My hangover has rendered me less than excited though and the 3 hours of sleep I got after stumbling back to my apartment at 330 are just enough of a tease to really piss me off.  "I guess I'll pay for it today," I think, knowing that I would but consoling myself with the prospect of sleep on the 2 hour bus ride waiting for me at the Express Bus Terminal.  Liz and Natalie are waiting for me in front of our apartment building and we shoulder our backpacks and head to the road.  I haven't eaten, but I imagine I'll be able to find something by the bus stop, I mean come on I'm in the second largest metropolitan area in the world, why wouldn't I be able to.  That thought helps my bad mood a little too.  Jeremy didn't make it home yet, so he isn't coming and Natalie went home early from the wedding to get some sleep, but Liz and I are exhausted having stayed out for our friend Matthew's 28th birthday party the night before.  It was a bit of a banger, we had gone to several different bars, a Noribong, and I had slaughtered all comers at darts.  Somehow the sweetness of that victory hasn't lingered as much as the alcohol has, and I've rolled my window down to help with my headache.

            After an excruciatingly uncomfortable ten minute cab ride we get to the bus stop.  I use the bathroom in the subway because it's the closest one and according to Liz there is also a Family Mart down there.  The bathroom is great, miraculously it cures my hangover, but the Family Mart is nonexistent and I have to make do with the slim pickings of a mini food . . . place, not even a store.  Digestives it is, Jori you'd be proud of me, ugh.  Oh well, I think were going to stop at a rest stop I should be fine, they might have food there.  We meet Andrew at the bus and get in.  He sits next to a girl in the seat on the other side of the aisle;

            "Come on man sit over here," I say.  He's my friend, me mocking him is why he's here at least he should sit by me.

            "Oh yea sure, thought you'd want to sit with Natalie or Liz, no problem."

            We sit for two minutes.  I'm fiddling with my ipod looking forward to a nice rejuvenating two hour nap when . . .

            "You're going to have to entertain me you know, I'm wide awake.  You made me wake up at the ass crack of dawn to come on this trip so if you try to go to sleep I'm going to poke you until you wake up."

            The little bastard, of course, this makes sense.  I sigh, resigning myself to the fact that I'm going to be the groggiest white water rafter ever and we leave.

            We talk about school, work terrorizing small children, comment on the differences between Seoul and what we're passing at the moment, mostly mountains dotted with small towns and farms.  Andrew wakes up the entire bus singing along with the CD and my annoyance with him is complete, oh well.  My eyes have been half open the whole trip as I've drifted in out of debilitating exhaustion but not anymore.  Sweet Caroline has proved to much of a classic for Andrew to resist screaming BAH BAH BAAAAHHH, GOOD TIMES NEVER FELT SO GOOD, what an ass.  

            I figure if I'm going to be up I might as well make the most of it.  I get out my camera and start trying to get good shots of the mountains at 65 miles an hour, no such luck.  I delete most of them as they are crap.  A motorcyclist stares at me though and I get a decent one of him, that will have to suffice, an hour and a half has run its course and the rest station is outside.  Out of the bus, noodles for breakfast, they're delicious and along with the Powerade I get clear up what little is left of my hangover and even wake me up a little bit.

            After twenty minutes we get back on the bus and the remaining half hour of the ride flies by, I'm awake now and getting excited.  We reach the departure point for rafting ahead of schedule, gear up and get ready.  Our trip manager (?) has had us make groups of ten on the bus and we put together a pretty solid group of 9.  Liz, Andrew, Natalie and I, three Koreans, Barra, an Indian man who works for Samsung, and Ellie a really nice Canadian who also works at a Hagwan.  We pick up one more girl as the other two buses arrive and get ready to go.  A guide comes and gets us, we grab paddles helmets, lifejackets and our raft and carry it down to the river.  After taking a group photo of the Adventure Korea trip members we leave.  The rafting guide speaks no English and has struggled to get us in the water.  He gets impatient with us almost immediately as Andrew and I have insisted on splashing as many people as we can right away.  He's not the only one upset, the girl we added to our original group of nine is furious that other groups are splashing her.  She remarked earlier that she was uncomfortable in a bathing suit and had no desire to get wet.  Really?  We're going white water rafting, what do you think is going to happen here?  We're in a small boat, floating down a river dotted with rapids, and you have two idiots splashing everyone they can, sorry, you're going to get soaked.

            We spend 10 minutes failing to grasp the concepts of rowing as a group at the bend in the river we've launched ourselves into.  Our guide's feeble attempts to get us to row together only serve to make Andrew look like more of an ass and our guide more angry.  Great.  It doesn't matter though we're rafting and as soon as we figure out how to row we make our way into the steady procession of blue, yellow and red rafts floating down the river.  We hit "rapids" almost immediately and in my place in the front I'm grinning as a wave of river water washes over me.

            I've missed this, swimming opportunities have been sparse in Seoul and the only wet I've experienced has been the comforting warmth of my shower in the morning.  Here though I've just felt the shock of the cool river water right in my face.  I'm reminded of the Ocean, standing arm in arm with friends at the beach trying vainly to stand up to the breakers as they crash down upon us.  I'm reminded of the cool dirty water at the Laurel Reservoir, littered with leaves and floating sticks, swimming around them and laughing at Jessie's attempts at freestyle.  St. Mary's comes to mind, riding Ben's Laser so fast the only part of the boat touching the water is the centerboard, arching my back as I fly across brackish Horseshoe Bend trying to dip my head into the water careening past me below.  I remember pulling myself back up onto the boat feeling the water being pushed out of my face by the wind, streaming through my hair, down my sunburned back and pooling around my feet in the cockpit.  I remember letting go, letting the boat heel so much it capsizes and I'm thrown out of it laughing.  As this new river crashes around me, engulfs me, cleanses me, I can't help but smile and laugh a little bit, hello again my friend.  

            My reverie complete, I'm back in the boat, as wide awake as I've ever been, listening to the laughter of my fellows, the annoyance of the one girl who doesn't want to get wet.  She has a very winey voice, but it's really funny to listen to her complain because she deserves everything she's upset about in my opinion, I mean come on.  We resume paddling after we get past these first rapids to counts of "1...2...1...2...1," we're on our very own Greek trireme, a rubber one, that really won't do to well if we were to ram anything but the repetitive calls to dip our paddles reminds me of the drum beat that was used to keep the time on the old Athenian warships.  I smile at the thought, and stroke and stroke and stroke until the guide tells us all to stop, we're nearing the next stretch of white water and our paddles will remain in our laps so we don't lose them in the tossing of the boat.  This won't be a problem though because our guide has just steered us directly on top of a rock, and we're stuck.  

            Our guide of course is now furious, I mean as the person tasked with actually directing the boat whose fault could it be but anybody other than him right?  He gives us all withering looks and manages to get us off the rock but now he's really angry and it shows in his constant attempts to steer us away from things that look like a lot of fun, like the waterfall coming up.  We've all been trying to head towards it for the while against his Korean overtures which only two on the boat understand anyway.  The two girls who do understand him are yelling at the four guys in the front, Andrew, Balah, one other guy and I to stop paddling towards it, yea right.  We've just watched the boats in front of us all go under the water cascading down the rock walls of the river, I'll be damned if we're not going to do it.  So we keep our direction and as we get closer he yells more, the Koreans translate a little more urgently and the girl who doesn't want to get wet wails.  This is going to be fun.  We make it to the small falls and love it.  It's hot out and we've dried from our last trip through rapids so this feels very good.  The whiney girl complains all the louder now about how wet her jeans are getting and how we're all jerks but like I said earlier she deserves it.  

            At this point I'm ignoring the back half of the boat because they're loud and obnoxious, I'm sick of the guide, the Korean girls only translate for him, and that girl is just mean to all of us.  Andrew and I are having a blast splashing everyone around us while Natalie and Liz are doing their best to keep up with us.  The four of us in the front have become the ring leaders of this little escapade and we've been dictating our skirmishes with the boats around us much to the chagrin of the back half.  They yell, giving me all the more reason to ignore them and splash harder.  We head to the next set of rapids and brace ourselves, this one coming up looks rough.  There will be no splashing now, paddles in the boat as the boat bucks around in the river.  Natalie is laughing and the next thing I know I've been struck quite hard not once but twice right on my head.  It's a good thing I'm wearing a helmet as Natalie's paddle probably would have shattered my skull.  "I guess that's why we have to wear helmets laugh Natalie and Liz."  I laugh suddenly a lot more appreciative of safety precautions, maybe I should be paying attention to the back of the boat, no I don't think so.  

            The river is calm now, and has been since we passed those rapids.  I'm a little groggy from the blows to my noggin but all in all I'm having a great time.  The river is really something here,  it has cut a canyon of sorts through the mountains and small waterfalls abound.  The river is framed by black rock and a surrounding forest.  The walls of our little canyon rise as high as 50 feet in some places and some places not at all.  It's really cool.  We've seen several interesting rock formations and there seems to be an endless supply of these along our way.  I'm marveling at it all, the whole scene is breathtaking at points but never less than beautiful.  The green of the trees, the living rock we're floating past, the clear open blue of the sky and cool embrace of the water all offer much needed relief from the filth of the city.  Seoul is certainly beautiful in it's own right but this experience is similar to the hike I'd taken with Natalie a few weeks ago.  It feels so good to be here.  It reminds me of home.  I'm shirking my paddling duties but I really don't care I'm trying to absorb all of this, trying to internalize all of this.  I don't know when I'll be out of the city in a place like this again, I need to fill my cup because I may need to live off of this for a while.  

            Sometimes the city feels suffocating, the buildings arch over you and the sky seems to be cloudy much more than it is clear.  Space is tight in Seoul, everything is sandwiched between everything else and my claustrophobia has been itching a little of late.  I never thought that I was claustrophobic except once when I was younger.  At boy scouts Colin, Chris and I had taken turns climbing into an old chest.  I was last and just as I had done to them they leaned on the doors so I couldn't get out.  Colin had yelled until we let him out, Chris had sat quietly until we got bored of the game and crawled out on his own terms, but I took a different route.  I sat in the chest for two minutes thinking I'd be stoic like Chris was and get out when I wanted to, but as time progressed I got more and more jumpy.  The air was stuffy and smelled of mothballs, I was seated rather uncomfortably in the fetal position, my legs were up against my chest and my back against the rear of the compartment and I couldn't move.  I needed to move, I always have, and at that moment I felt this need more than I ever had before or since.  I felt trapped, suffocated, chained down and I grew frantic.  I kicked on the door to no avail, Colin and Chris were without laughing, calling me a scaredy cat.  I didn't care I needed to get out, breathing was becoming a awkward as it was the only action I could do.  My body was breathing as quickly as it could as if I had this sub-conscious drive to do something, anything, I needed to be active and breathing was the only thing I had left.  I kicked on the door again, only to hear more laughter in return.  My hyperventilation grew worse and I decided that this was enough.  I braced my legs against the door and back to the wall of the chest, and pushed with all of my might.  I ripped the back of the chest from the rest of the container.  I had pushed the screws out of the mahogany frame.  The chest had been up against the wall and along with destroying it I had pushed it and my friends two feet away from where they had stood seconds before.  I climbed out of the back red faced and sweating, looked at my friends who were stunned that I had broken the chest and ended our game.  "You broke it man, were gonna get in so much trouble, why did you do that?"  I blinked, "you should have let me out."

            We didn't tell anybody about that, we just pushed the chest back up against the wall and climbed off of the stage in St. Mildred's, back to Mr. Chrismer yelling at us to join the scout circle, so we didn't get in trouble, but I'll never forget that.  That was the most scared I had ever been in my life, and it was the day that I discovered I was claustrophobic.  I haven't had problems with it since then, but I've always felt a little it in cities.  Everything is so close together and it makes me a little uneasy.  The world is a large place and I hate feeling like I can't see it, like I'm encapsulated in monotony.  I hate passing the same gray skyscrapers day in and day out.  I hate starring at the same cobble stones under my feet every morning knowing there isn't anything there but stone.  At home there are trees, at school, the river, Dagoba, and so much more but here there are only high rises that loom like fence posts everywhere, the power lines linking them form the barbed wire and I walk the same trails daily like a mindless farm animal forever toiling amongst my own droppings.

It isn't like this though, here I'm only held in by . . . well nothing.  We pull up to a beach as I revel in that knowledge.  Here we're allowed to get out, stretch our legs and swim a little if we like (with our lifejackets on).  I of course choose the later of the three options and am now realizing that if I position myself just right I can float effortlessly in the cool murky water, unmolested.  How relaxing, I smile perhaps the biggest smile I've let go in a long while and amuse myself by waving at the passing rafts beaming like an idiot.  The people all wave back, mostly with confused smiles on their faces followed shortly by nervous laughs that can only mean "Hey, look at that crazy white guy, what's he so happy about?"  The fact that they wave tells me that somewhere in their Korean hearts they know exactly what I'm smiling about and are enjoying life just as much as I am right now.  The current cradles me in its arms and I couldn't be happier.  It goes around in an oval here as it swirls around the spit of land directly before the beach, so I really have to exert no effort to stay here, none at all, amazing.

I'm called back to reality by the rest of the group as the guides have set up a mini water slide on the beach.  If there isn't anything as relaxing as what I've been doing for the last few minutes than there certainly isn't anything as gratifying as a makeshift water slide, yes, I'm in.  I climb out of the water and get in line with the rest of the rafters.  We run as fast as we can down the slope of the beach one at time and jump onto the underside of an upturned raft being splashed with water from the river by the raft guides, sliding immediately off.  On my first attempt I propel myself over the 16 foot raft having attempted to skim across on my stomach.  Instead I'm surprised to find myself hitting the water on the other side face first, filling my mouth, nose and ears with the Hantan River.  I pull up out of the water laughing, that was great, 100% worth the sting of a face plant.  I think I'll go a few more times.

I went 6 more times, one guy got a back flip off, I didn't but am having a lot of fun watching the Indian guys try, this one guy just landed on his head, priceless!  "One more time," calls a guide to a chorus of groans, but we're on a schedule and this is only an appetizer for what's to come later so we all oblige them and go two more times, like I'm going to accept no more water slide for you, ever.  

The rest of the river is mild, one more set of rapids, but our battles with the other boats are far from it.  There is a boat loaded with Indians who work for Samsung chanting Indian War chants with one guy standing in the middle with his oar thrust to the sky as a spear.  We are in the process of obliterating them, even with our tiny contingency of people willing to fight.  It's four on ten and we've shown them what Amurica is all about.  This is a good time.  There are several stare downs with other boats involving the non spoken conversation of; "You're not gonna splash us," "No YOU'RE not gonna splash US" "Oh YEAH!"  "YEAH" which of course immediately degenerates into another skirmish.  Alliances are being forged and broken in spans of seconds.  The Indian battalion has been humbled but are still screaming their war chants as we pull away from them and four other rafts who we have had our way with.  We pull into the departure point, soaked, my leg is bleeding, from what I don't know, and tired.

What a great trip.

Dragonflies (23 photos), by Patrick Douville

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The city/Doosan Bears (38 photos), by Patrick Douville

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The Mountain revisited

Clearly my hiking trip this weekend meant a lot to me, I spent nearly 4 hours yesterday detailing it for you guys, and today I reflected a little bit on why it was so important.  At first I thought it was just the great feeling that I got when I reached the top and the cool things I got to see up and down the mountain, but upon further consideration it occurred to me that it's a bit more complicated than that.

Of course each of the views from the five peaks we visited were truly beautiful.  My pictures can't really capture for you all what I saw on Saturday but my memories of the things I saw and went through are going to stick with me for the rest of my life.  Not discounting these memories it is instead the atmosphere of the whole mountain that remains in my mind as the most important part of the whole experience.  

Being here in Seoul has been great, it is an amazing city with an enormous amount of things to do, places to go, containing far more people than I can ever hope to meet in the short amount of time I have here.  I'm one in over ten million small people and on top of that I'm a foreigner.  This makes me doubly invisible, doubly ignorable.  Not in the sense that people can't see me but rather that I am just another Waeguk (foreigner) here trying to make a buck.  I had a conversation at a bar the other night with these two women who kept on asking me why I came to Korea.  I tried to explain to them my different reasons, rather drunkenly I must admit, but they laughed at me and said "Noooo you're just here for the money."  Money?  What Money?

   Regardless of the reasons they thought I had for coming to Korea, the women had some preconceived notion as to why I was here and had no intention to hear my side of the story.  They saw me as just another outsider and that attitude sadly characterizes my experiences with most of the Koreans I've met.  I'm not one of them and they are acutely aware of that.  Some people here mistrust me and some dislike me, hell some refuse to even look at me.  I walk down the road and smile at almost everyone that I make eye contact with but nine times out of ten, despite the fact that we clearly saw each other and I am clearly being friendly, the man or woman on the receiving end of my good natured grin looks directly at the ground, or into a shop they're passing, or at the traffic signal.  Invariably these people disregard my smile, disregard me.  This is even true at work where some of the Koreans who make lunch for the children have refused to talk to any of us foreign teachers.  

I've read that Koreans habitually mistrust outsiders, especially Westerners as they see our many intrusions into Korea as harmful and beneficial only to the intruding party.  This is especially true in the elderly who experienced the horrors of the Korean war, and the generation they reared which is now running the country.  Fortunately this mistrust has not spread to my students or else I'd have quite a hard time trying to teach them, but even in that case I get the sense that I am looked upon by some with doubt in almost everything that I do. 

Maybe this is just my first time in a big city and this impersonal way of life is just the way that everyone lives.  I've not been to New York but I hear that the people there are cold and unfriendly, I've heard the same for Boston, but I never imagined that one could be made to feel so isolated in such a big place.  That is an overstatement, I don't feel tremendously isolated, but I do feel like just another face in the crowd, easily ignored.  That doesn't really sit well with me, I like being nice to people and I like seeing people happy.  My previous experiences have taught me that a smile is often enough to brighten someone's day, that smiles are contagious and spread if only you're willing to be a carrier.  Here I've found the opposite to be true.  My smile is perhaps what makes me different, people don't seem to want to smile at each other here, they're content to be alone with their prejudices and preconceived notions about outsiders, and a smile to them doesn't cut through the walls they've built, doesn't cut into their community.

That's the problem, Korea is a definite community in which I have yet to gain a foothold.  Some of my co-workers seem to have broken into this community a little bit by dating Koreans, learning the language and other things.  I am new and have not had a chance to seriously study the language or develop any meaningful relationships with any Koreans, but from what I've been told Waeguk attempts to learn the language are looked upon with scorn as pronunciation is tricky and mistakes are a hallmark of anyone learning Korean as a second language.  It's almost as if you're trying to get your dog to do a trick and he does half of it right while completely ignoring or botching the other half, you smile, give him the treat and walk away thinking he did a good job, because well he's just a dog anyway, he's never going to get it 100% right.  You know you could do it perfectly and well, that's what separates us from the dogs.  From what I heard Koreans regard foreigners with a similar mentality, no matter what you do to improve linguistically or culturally, you're never going to be one of them and though you may be cute when you try to emulate them, you're always going to be a step below the real deal, a cheap imitation of a priceless piece of art.  That my friends is immensely discouraging as immersing myself in the culture is something I would very much like to do.  To be sure I can still do it but I don't know if I'm ever going to belong to that inner community no matter how hard I try.

This weekend however, I had the odd notion that I was becoming a part of something here, the mountain climbing community.  Though I was still a Waeguk people didn't seem to avoid my gaze and surprisingly my smile was returned to me a thousand times more than it had ever been in the city.  Though people laughed while I rested, laughed when I lost my footing, laughed  when I almost fell, I got the sense that I was being laughed with instead of at.  Even though I certainly didn't look the climbing buff I felt that people respected me a little more just for being there and sharing the mountain with them.  In my mind I found my first foothold in a Korean community on Saturday, and though it's a cooky community of people who take climbing far more seriously than I ever have and probably ever will, they definitely accepted me in.  I was invited to join in a mountaintop drinking session, I took dinner at a Temple alongside fellow climbers, and Korean people smiled at me!  The mountain proved itself to be a great arbiter between me and the Koreans.  I may not really be a part of the Korean community per-say but I've found a niche within this society where I can be at least be marginally accepted.  

I get the feeling that I'm not giving the Korean people enough credit and that the longer I am here the more accepting they'll be of me, but up until Saturday I hadn't felt a part of the culture here at all.  The attitudes of the people on the mountain changed that for me.  Maybe the city changes people, maybe the rat race makes people disregard things like smiles from foreigners, makes them refrain from trusting others, and maybe I'm just to new to really pass any judgement, but the open atmosphere of  Dobongsan didn't have any maybes in it.  We smiled at each other, we laughed together and we all climbed the same stony stairs leading up to a breathtaking look at the squalor of the city below.  Natalie and I've decided to go hiking on a different mountain every two weeks, to taste the crisp fresh air of the great outdoors, to feel the burn of exhaustion in our legs, to get away from the monotony of work and for me at least to rejoin a not so exclusive club whose only condition for membership is a person's presence on the mountain.  Perhaps most importantly everyone in this club is always read to smile back through sweat and exertion, through culture barriers and community walls, because here we're all the same, sore and tired.

Dobongson (142 photos), by Patrick Douville

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album 08/14/09 (28 photos), by Patrick Douville

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Dobongsan and more (this is going to be a long post, a lot happened)

Friday night I took it easy preparing myself for yesterday morning.  Natalie and I had planned a hike for the morning on the recommendation of one of our Korean coworkers and I figured if I was going to get up super early at 1030 and go on a hike I'd better not be feeling the after effects of the night before.  That may have been the best decision I've made since getting here.

   After sleeping in until 10:30 and suspending the trip an hour or so I met up with Natalie, we bought some food and went down to the subway.  Four transfers and over an hour spent languishing on the subway we arrived at Dobongsan station at the foot foot of the mountain.  We had seen just about all of the eastern side of the city and were now farther than we'd ever been from home near the end of the far reaching line 1, the purple line.  When we stepped off of the train we could see the mountain we'd be climbing despite the cloud of smog that hovers over the city, and though not gigantic it was impressive, I was pretty excited.  We were about to climb Dobongsan.  San means mountain in Korean and they just attach it to the end of the name so if we were to translate this, we were headed up to Dobong mountain.  

While we were walking up the road I couldn't help but think that it didn't look that high and was excited to go up, conquer the mountain, come down having proved myself a badass in less than 3 hours all without breaking a sweat.  Ha.  On our way up we passed a lot of older Koreans all decked out in climbing gear; poles, hiking shoes, mountain climbing backpacks and under armor-esque clothing all of which was long sleeve.  We had a laugh at that because as much as these people looked the part, we did not.  We were both wearing shorts, a t-shirt and running shoes and I probably wouldn't have looked much different had we been going to the bars.  As funny as we thought these avid climbers were they actually helped us out when we got off the subway.  We had no idea how to get to the mountain, we could see it but that was it, we were still in the city, so we decided to just follow the currents of obvious mountain climbers flocking to the beginning of the trail.  We were right to do so as the hikers led us right up to where we would be starting our hike.  

On the way up to the mountain we got a chance to see where all of these hikers did their shopping.  The road was lined with hiking shops big and small.  All of them had barrels full of hiking poles, shelves full of hiking shoes and racks from which hung the ridiculous clothing our fellow hikers were wearing.  There were also special hats, handkerchiefs and sunglasses in a variety of colors.  Ponchos, mess kits and tents also sat in the display cases, you know just in case you had forgotten yours at home.  The size of this hiking market was ridiculous, these stores had everything and I think we passed about 45 different places.  All of the big brands like North face were represented and the funny thing was that the knockoff brands of the bigger ones had stores right next to whomever they were trying to emulate.  The one that stuck in my mind was a North face store right next to a Red face store, but there were many more besides that.  We also passed a lot of food stands that sold anything you could want.  We had bought some snacks before hand so we didn't stop at these places, but I at least was amused by the fact that these shops on top of selling traditional Korean food, which isn't very nutritious as it is, carried soju and other liquor, what great companions for a grueling hike, liquor and junkfood.

At the trailhead we stopped into the park rangers office and picked ourselves up a handy dandy map on which the ranger was nice enough to highlight the route we'd be taking to the top.  The map showed all the peaks as well as points of interest along the trails, we'd be taking the orange trail to Juanbong, the top of the mountain and I was happy to see that along the way we'd be passing a few temples and hermitages that had been there for quite some time.  I'd be getting a little history and sightseeing in with my hike, killing two birds with one stone, alright! We got started right away . . . on a paved road which cars were driving down.  Great, is this going to be hiking in Korea?  Paved roads lined with food vendors?  Natalie and I remarked to each other that this had better get a little more challenging or we'd just taken an hour and a half subway ride for nothing.  We kept on going though and encountered our first temple, luckily I had brought my camera so I was able to snap off a few shots of the temple buildings, an impressive statue of the Buddha and the guardian demons painted on the doors.  Not too long after we came across an old school which I also took a picture of.  Both the temple and school were the first real examples I'd seen of traditional Korean Architecture and though they were small it was pretty cool to see.  I particularly enjoy the roofs and gates, the tiles that compose the roof and the lines of the houses and gates are quite cool in my opinion.  

We continued up the paved road and were happy to see that it turn quickly to old laid stone which quickly changed to jagged stone steps as we made our way farther up the trail.  Directly next to the trail was a stream strewn with boulders where Korean hikers were picnicking and washing their feet.  The trail itself was littered with large rocks and grew progressively steeper as we went up.  It was all steps at this point that seemed to have been hewn out of the rock of the mountain itself.  The steps were old and rough, some were small, others large but all were unique, it was interesting to see and different from any hike I'd been on in the states.  I imagined that these had been laid by either the monks or hermits of one of the monasteries we were approaching some centuries before and that thought steeled my resolve to beat this mountain.

The problem however with that was that this was getting hard.  It hadn't been an hour before I was soaked to the bone.  I had packed my bag full of food and 4 liters of water and gatorade adn it was weighing on me pretty heavily, my calves were burning along with my hamstrings while sweat poured out of my my brow and dripped all over the ground, my camera, my shoes.  I'm sure you could have followed me had it been less hot, there would have been a small salty stream coursing down the mountain in my wake, disgusting I know but it was a hot day and the hike was becoming more and more strenuous as we got further up the mountain.  I started giving myself breaks by taking pictures of the scenery.  While this may not have been necessary it was worth it and I got some cool shots of the mountain as we climbed.  It wasn't very different from mountains I've hiked in the appalachians.  The plant life was comparable, a lot of conifers, some oaks, the only glaring difference was the amount of stones, the combination of these things made for some pretty cool pictures and I took advantage of that.  

We both tired out pretty quick, the hike was quite a workout and we were laughing at ourselves for our earlier confidence, which turned out to be pretty ridiculous.  It was a jolt back to reality, I had imagined myself to be in pretty good shape, but the mountain proved me wrong.  I might still be in decent shape but I am certainly not where I want to be just yet.  I remember being a kid and going four hours up old rag without any significant break.  Maybe these trails were steeper but I still felt like a wimp as we sat down for our lunch of bagels and apples.  The Koreans were laughing at us as well, which normally would make things worse for me, but Natalie and I both laughed it off, we kind of deserved it, and besides we thought it was pretty fun too.  We sat for a little and then continued upward, continually laughing at our now exposed frailty, the trail was at such a steep incline at some points that you had to use a rope to pull yourselves up, at other points railings were set up to hold on to where the rock was to smooth to climb, all of these seemed insurmountable barriers by the time we were about an hour from the summit, and our resolve was at an all time low when we stopped for a break near the top.

We were in the middle of talking to each other about how ridiculous we must look, how funny it was that the Koreans were all laughing at us, and how both of us had almost fallen within the last ten minutes when we met with our new companion.  Torbin was a German biologist who traveled all over the world with his parents and was admittedly pretty strange.  Natalie saw him climbing up when we were resting and asked him if we was going to make it.  I think she may have regretted calling out to him later but he came over and started talking to us.  He is a beetle expert who had just come to Korea the same as us.  Well he had been here before but had only recently returned.  He sat with us as we rested and then continued on with us as we resumed our hike.  

He spoke to us the whole time through such a thick German accent that I thought his name was Tobin for almost the entire day.  He punctuated almost every sentence with abrupt laughter, but was so good natured it was hard not to like him.  While he was a little weird he was a very nice guy and he provided us with the drive to reach the top that we had lost in our last break.  It was only about 15 minutes to the top from where we had stopped and it went a lot quicker than the last hour had.  We talked with Torbin about different things, Korea, Germany, hiking, how we all needed to get back in shape while climbing nearly 70 percent inclines of solid rock that were pretty challenging but quite beautiful.  Before we knew it we had reached the top.  

The scenery was spectacular.  The peak we had climbed was the highest peak you could reach on a ridge line dotted with six or seven other mountains that you could see.  All of the peaks were topped with massive boulders jutting out of the surrounding forests.  Our peak was the same except that we were at the top of the giant stone looking out over the other ones.  All the effort had been worth it the view was just amazing.  Alone with the other mountains you could see the city, still shrouded in the smog that makes it nearly impossible to see the stars at night.  Despite the smog it was still breathtaking.  The best part I think had to be the air.  As we had climbed I had noticed the air becoming cleaner and cleaner, it tasted so delicious, especially at the tope of the mountain coupled with the landscape below us, it tasted like accomplishment.

We took some pictures of ourselves, included Torbin and some of our fellow mountain climbers and continued on.  Natalie had planned on going down but we continued along the ridge of the mountain with Torbin to the next peak.  This part of the trip was much easier as we were walking either downhill or on mostly level ground and we now had a burning sense of victory to fuel our extended hike.  It was a nice walk Torbin proved that he prefered to talk then be quite and I was happy to humor him.  He told us he was 32 and traveled a lot with his parents.  He worked out of his home studying beetles and would stop every once in a while to examine the flora and fauna.  

We stopped at 4 other peaks each slightly different than the one before.  From the first, Jubong, we were able to see the northern side of the mountain, a sea of trees stretching as far as one could rolling like waves over the mountains in the distance.  At the second one we encountered some picnickers who were happy to share their bounty with us.  One of the men handed Torbin a milky liquid in a cup which turned out to be some sort of liquor.  We passed it around and it was delicious, I had scoffed at this at the bottom of the mountain but at the top it was really refreshing.  I think it also gave me a little more energy.  At the third which was Podae Peak I think, Torbin and I scrambled over the boulders on the top with Natalie worrying out loud behind us, we then convinced her to scramble up with us and the suburbs surrounding the Purple line we had rode up on sprawled before us.  We took some pictures and were about to leave when a helicopter came roaring over our heads.  We had passed a helipad earlier and the pilot landed the chopper there behind the second peak we had stopped at, presumably to rescue some poor sap who had twisted an ankle.  We moved on, having watched the helicopter land and depart to the fifth peak we would see that day, the fourth since the original and the last we would see that day.  The way there became a little less concrete.  Gravel and loose dirt were most of what we walked on on our way and Torbin had quite a fall.  He tumbled down end over end and cut himself up on his hands, legs and forehead.  He was a little shaken but besides the cuts none the worse for wear.  We made it to the last peak not to long after that.  From there you could see an ancient Monastery that we left for after taking in our last view of the mountain top.

The three of us started down the mountain around 430.  Actually it was three mountains over from the one we had climbed earlier and the way down was pretty easy.  "It's all stairs" Torbin told us as we went down and so it was, wooden stairs set very close together, I had to walk sideways down them because my feet when facing forward hung over the edges of the steps to much.  Despite the short, steep steps we made it down to the monastery though Torbin kept on jokingly telling me I was going to fall next.  The monastery was beautiful, well it was a Temple actually, the Mongwolsa Temple to be precise.  I took pictures of the Temple itself which was really something.  The building itself was really ornate and intricately built, with reliefs on the outside walls and impressively detailed painted wood carvings framing the roof.  The inside was amazing too.  Awe inspiring Golden Buddha statues and golden wall hangings, the name of which I can't think of right now, stared out at me from behind the simple altar.  I snapped a few pictures after asking permission from one of the monks and then we walked down a stairway into the courtyard of the Temple.  There was a spring were weary hikers were resting and having a drink.  We waited unsure what we were allowed to do, while Torbin cleaned his cuts at the sink in the kitchen.  He called out to us that dinner was free here and we were more than welcome to it and several of the kitchen ladies beckoned us to come in and sit down, we happily obliged.

The meal was pretty good.  It was all vegetables for the most part with rice, soup and walnuts, but I was pleasantly surprised.  We had the pleasure of english speaking company at dinner to, a lady named Diane who was staying at the temple for the weekend talked to us a little bit about Buddhism and the temple's history.  Diane and her friends told us about the time they'd spent in America, one had been to Baltimore and stayed in Hunt Valley.   Unfortunately we couldn't stay to long to talk though.  It was getting late and we were tired so we washed our dishes, thanked everyone for their company and food, walked outside to fill our water bottles up at the spring and walked down the rest of the way.  We encountered another spring on the way down which we crossed over a few times.  I took pictures of the source and later the stream that it became.  It was a nice little stream because the water just cascaded down the rocks so there were several small waterfalls along the way and a natural water slide that several guys were playing on.  It reminded me of Sedona though it was small in comparison and I think that I'd like to go back there just to try it out, it looked like a lot of fun.

We made it down finally and walked to the metro exhausted.  We stopped on the way to get ice cream, a desert that seemed fit for a king at that point.  We gobbled it down then left on the subway.  We said goodbye to Torbin halfway through our ride, and laughed a little bit when he left, he had been a strange man but a good hiking companion and I'm glad we ran into him.  An hour later we got back to Hanti and went almost immediately to bed, tired and sore, but, in my case anyway completely satisfied with the day