edit:

This is what I will climb next. It's name is Surak-san. Our union happens Sunday.

BUKHANSAN

not-Baegundae-Peak

close to the bottom, with I Young-Gyung Sem.

we stopped at a food cabin near the top, drank makkoli. Young-Gyung was scared of the kitty.

and she was also afraid of heights.

alone at Baegundae Peak

together at Baegundae Peak. left: Mr. Yang; right: Koho

Young-Gyung finds the courage to stand without grasping the rail.

makkoli at the peak

maybe this is what I will climb next.

Koho didn't lie this time, Bukhansan was actually easier than Samaksan. Maybe my stamina's improving?

Oh, sheep. Oh.

I'm climbing this tomorrow:

Bukhannnn-san, and at the base of it, The Blue House.

not as hard as Samak-san?

We'll start at Suyu Station, eat lunch at Doseong Temple (Sa=temple, by the way. fuck youuuuu map translators). Then we'll climb to the damn ass fucking peak (Baegundae) and drink some goddamn makkoli.

Hangul fact time: 북한 = bukhan, and it means "north of the Han (river)". Naturally, Bukhan-san is north of the Han River. So is North Korea. Besides being the name of a mountain in North-Central Seoul, 북한 is also the unofficial name of North Korea as referred to by South Koreans.

Bukhan-san has a looming reputation, I'm a little nervous.

this is what I looked like today

the Seoul Wall

KoHo and his son

me and KoHo's son

the peak of Baegak Mt.

goddamnit,

I just agreed to climb Suri-san (the 4-peaked beast I blogged about in January) again this Sunday. At least it won't be frigid this time. Maybe there will even be flowers.

The downside is that when I climbed it before I didn't have to teach the next week, so my aching body was allowed to recuperate in the comfort of my apartment. But next week, I have to teach. I also have to climb a LOT of stairs.

Here's hoping I don't get as stiff this time around. Here's hoping I eat another pupa.

KoHo, you LIED to me.

They do a funny thing here. They call a thing a mountain, when it's really a miniature mountain range.

Which is to say, when I talk to Park Mi-Ran next week, I will tell her I climbed 수리산 (Suri-san) today. But the truth (as I see it) is that I climbed 4 mountains today. Because Suri-san has 4 peaks, and we couldn't just climb ONE.

The trail itself was not difficult. In fact, I was doing pretty good right up until we started the descent of peak #3, at which point I decided I wanted to die. Then we cooked lunch on our propane stove and drank makkoli (rice wine) with hot ramen, and I wanted to die less. Then we climbed peak #4, and I wanted to die again. But there was more makkoli to be had at the top of peak #4, so I didn't want to die anymore for a brief span of time. But the descent of peak #4 was a shitstorm. The whole thing took about 7 hours, including our lunch-break. Which is to say, we climbed those mountains FAST.

But I made it, I guess. Apparently KoHo's hiking club is impressed with me and wants to teach me how to rock-climb this spring.

Other accomplishments of the day: not losing my T-money card, peeling a clementine in one fell swoop, eating a silk-worm pupa (part of our mountain lunch) while being knowingly scrutinized by every member of hiking club, and keeping my gag reflex successfully in check. In fact, I've found that it really helps me eat something gross if there's someone staring intensely into my eyes while I'm chewing.

For dinner, we had smoked pork, and somehow they made it taste like cinnamon applesauce. It was delicious.

But both cinnamon-applesauce-pork and silk-worm-pupa would definitely have made me gag in private. (Also: no one forced me to eat that silk-worm pupa. Is it strange if I am purposely taking advantage of the absence of my gag reflex in public to try eating animals that I have never eaten before?)




Sitting at home now, and my hips feel like someone murdered them. My body is going to hate me tomorrow, and I am going to love it a little.

ok, fine.

I'll climb a mountain this Sunday. I'll buy crampons tomorrow to help with the whole "it's winter" thing. If only because I've never climbed a snowy mountain before, and KoHo is a good person to climb a snowy mountain for the first time with. This mountain isn't as hard as the last one we climbed, he assures me. Whatever, KoHo. I don't BELIEVE you anymore, but I'll continue to follow you anyway.

Maybe when I am finished climbing this new mountain, then I will stay at home and knit and drink something hot and sweet.

will I climb a mountain this sunday?

can't I just stay home and knit instead?

thursdays I meditate after school,

and then I climb the mountain behind my school with KoHo.

Remember when I was conflicted about meditation club? My attendance was spotty for maybe a month after I first tried it, but I'm addicted now. The club leader was too busy to hold the meeting last week, and I can't even tell you how much I missed it. I missed it like only a person as awkward as myself could miss it.

It's really soothing. I've gotten used to the sharing of feelings at the beginning and end of each session. At the beginning, I tell them what things are stressing me out lately. At the end, I usually try to find a silly way to describe the sensations that go on in my head during the meditation (for example, at various times I've told them it feels like: "my head is filled with water, and the tide keeps rising and falling," "electricity on my scalp," "there's a crab crawling around in my hair," etc). Today I told them it felt like someone was gently pulling my head upwards, like my head was a balloon and someone was pulling on my string.

The room where the meetings are held is so cozy. The floor is heated, and we sit on blankets/cover our laps with blankets. After the sharing of feelings, we sit in lotus position, close our eyes, and concentrate on our breathing. Then, the meditation leader (U Young-Hee) kneels in front of all of us by turns and puts her hands on the top of our heads for about 1-2 minutes each, ostensibly to share diksha (the energy of the universe) with us.

To be perfectly frank, it's this part of the meditation that I'm addicted to. The meditation itself is soothing, and it does calm me, truly. But I'm not sure that I would be making such a habit of Thursday meditation club if it wasn't for the 1-2 minutes of having someone's hands on my head. I have always loved the feeling of someone's hands on my head. It makes me feel so calm and under control and "everything will be okay." For a few minutes, U Young-Hee is my master/mentor and she will take good care of me, I know she will.

After we have all received diksha, we leave the lotus position for whatever position we find most comfortable (for me, my legs remain in lotus position, but I lay back flat on the floor). And we listen to soothing music and breathe deeply and sometimes briefly fall asleep and dream a little. After a while, we regroup and share what we felt during the meditation session (this is the part where I make up silly things).

And then we leave school, and I hike over the mountain with KoHo to the subway station that is second-nearest my school. It takes about 30 minutes. I get home at 6:30 or 7, make dinner, watch Korean soap operas, try to study Korean or lesson plan. But I am scattered all the time lately; it is hard to make myself do work.

Enough about me. How are your Thursdays?

another day, another mountain.

Mountain #2: Umyeonsan (Mt. Umyeon) for the second time. It's the mountain right behind my school, and I climbed it with Shin-Jeong and Park Mi-Ran to get to a photo exhibition close to Mi-Ran's house after school on Monday.

The exhibit was of Sarah Moon (who sounds Korean by name, but is British by birth and French for all purposes).

Common themes:
1. women in high fashion
2. birds (a plethora of parrots. a fair few seagulls. one toucan. pelicans. flamingos. herons. at least 3 peacocks)
3. nipples (see below)
4. naked backs (see below)
5. ballet
6. swimmers

Fairly typical of her fashion photography.

Most of the women in her photos are pictured from behind. Their faces are almost never shown, but their backs are almost always bare and on display.

Some of the backs were photographed in contorted positions, which reminded me a little bit of Edgar Degas. Like this painting, only with more uncertainty about what position the subject is in.

Again, face is (at least partially) covered/obscured. Nipples are another common theme. In some of the photos, the nipples are actually visible; in others, they are obscured. But the nipples are always present.

Normal people/objects photographed as though they were diseased/dying/dead. This is only a pockmarked statue, but doesn't it look like a decaying corpse or someone with the plague?

Finally, at the very end, a photo with movement.

On the whole, the exhibit was a bit of a downer, and both Mi-Ran and Shin-Jeong denounced Sarah Moon as pessimistic (which I have come to understand is a pretty sizable insult here).

"It seemed like a dream. Back to my childhood, I had sad dreams. I dreamt that my mother said goodbye and left me alone." -Park Mi-Ran

Alone-ness seems to be a societal fear, here. Several of my co-workers (male and female) have expressed to me their desire to find a husband/wife so that they will never have to live by themselves. Most of my unmarried co-workers still live with their parents, and will likely continue to do so until they get married. This is a desirable situation to most of them. "I don't want to live alone," they say, and their earnestness is tangible.

mountain in the morning. mountain in the evening. mountain at suppertime.

Mountain #1: Samaksan (Mt. Samak). The suffix -ak means "rocky" - hence, Samaksan was really steep and cliff-y, maybe the hardest hike of my life. I climbed it Sunday with Mr. Ko (one of my co-workers, also known by his self-given nickname, KoHo) and his hiking club. That day, I left my apartment before sunrise and got back after sunset, and my legs are still sore. At some points, the mountain was so steep that there were metal footholds driven into the rocks for purchase, and ropes to pull ourselves up. KoHo thought it was easy.

Buddhist temple about 1/3 up the mountain.

View of the Hangang (Han River) from 1/2 up the mountain.

One of the easier parts of the hike.

Me and KoHo, who doesn't like having his picture taken.

This isn't the whole group, but there you have it. We're about two steps away from the peak.

After we reached the summit: picnic time! They were all so prepared, it kind of blew my mind. We had fresh fruits&vegetables, chicken salad sandwiches, Korean wine, hot coffee from a thermos, dduk, and so much more.

Suddenly, it's cool here. The leaves are changing color. :)

Surprise waterfall.

Dead butterfly floating in the stream on the descent. Am I weird for liking this photo?

fuschiafuschiafuschia. clovers.

It's kind of a thing here for couples to write their names inside a heart on a padlock and then lock it to fences in certain popular places around Seoul. It's romantic, or something.

At the train station.