Busy Saturday

Because I was not proactive enough to write up the first half of this post earlier in the day, this will be another experiment in blogging while under the influence.

I went hiking with my Korean class this morning, and I actually got a chance to interact with other girls. I know I pride myself of being a tomboy, but somewhere along the line I lost the ability to speak to males. I didn't realize how deprived of girl-talk I was until I met Kait and Rachel there in the top picture (Kait, the blonde, is from Portland by the way; represent!). I also spent a lot of time with another Rachel and Stella, who I met last week. They're in the bottom picture (Stella is the black girl).

Now, I'll argue against gender essentialism until I'm blue in the face, but the fact is that women talk differently from men. I'm not sure if I can describe it, but I definitely prefer it. It's something about the pace and the energy level. Anyway, it was refreshing to feel like I had girlfriends without having to go on Skype and hope my connection wouldn't spaz out in the middle of a rant.

At first we took some steep but not too challenging stairs in a slightly woody part of the city. Considering the large group we had, I didn't think we'd be doing anything more strenuous than that.

Oh Jesus was I wrong!  We hiked along the fortress wall of Seoul, up and down mountains, until I thought my legs were going to go on strike and drop off. At every peak, we would wonder if this was the last upward struggle. Then we would get over the top and see another incline ahead. We talked and joked the whole way, when we had enough breath to speak.

I lost the boys pretty quickly, but that was no surprise since we were all so spread out. Luckily I had made friends with the girls so quickly that I was never lonely.

There were military installations along the wall. There were even men in black coats with walkie-talkies monitoring the hikers to make sure we didn't take pictures of the training camp. It was a little intense. But then we saw this soldier up on the wall waving down to us and posing for our pictures. It was pretty funny how worked up we all got whenever he appeared. We'd "ooh" and "aah" as if he were an animal in a zoo. We speculated that he was on "tourist duty," distracting us from the buildings and razor wire just around the wall.

The views in Korea are always worth the hike. Considering how jam-packed Seoul is, it's amazing how many great mountains they fit in.

I swear I have a disease that makes me climb every big rock I see. Anyway, here's me at the very tippy top of the mountain. Stella took the picture for me. After this it was all downhill, and let me tell you my knee is not pleased with me. I'll have to be more careful with it, and maybe get it checked out when I get home. But I don't want to go to the doctor while I'm in Korea. It's awkward enough being examined and trying to figure out what's wrong with you when you and the doctor share a first language.

I found the boys at the bottom of the mountain. They beat us down by about forty minutes, but some of the teachers were almost a half-hour behind us, so we didn't do too badly.

The boys went their own way, and the rest of the class went to get lunch together. I would have been happy to join either of them, but I had promised Kris that I would spend the evening with the family. I headed home.

We went to Namsan, the mountain in the very center of the city with Seoul Tower poking out of the top of it. Before we headed up we happened to come across this outdoor production of a play about, as far as I could tell, a turtle and a rabbit traveling the world together. At one point a bunch of mutants try to kill the rabbit for her liver. The mutants include a crab and an octopus.

No joke. A crab and an octopus. I didn't follow the play very well...

After that we bussed up the mountain. While we wandered around the top we got some cotton candy, one for Eun-hyuk and one for me and Kris to share.

It was too much sugar for Eun-hyuk to have before dinner, so Kris and I had to help him eat his. That's our story and we're sticking to it.

These wire figures were suspended in the air all over the place. They were pretty cool, especially when it got really dark and they were illuminated by spotlights.

On these trees and all around the guardrail were little plastic notes attached with padlocks. Each note had a wish written on it. A pretty cool idea, and it looked sort of messy and beautiful.

Here's the tower, with a flying wire-dude near the bottom. And my camera demonstrates that it hates low light, and punishes me with blurry pictures.

Here's us inside the tower. All around the windows are the distances to various international landmarks. Pretty impressive, especially with the 360-degree view of Seoul in the background.

Afterward we all went out for samgyupsal and soju. Hence my under-the-influenceness. Kris and her family are just wonderful, and I'm so glad they're letting me stay with them. They say that in ten years or so, I can do them the same favor by hosting Eun-hyuk when he's old enough to visit the States. I'd better work on having a vet practice and a nice apartment by then!