Korean hikers are hardcore

Oooh! After fiddling with it for a month, I figured out how to set a timer on my camera!

I also figured out how to put my posts behind cuts! Now my front page might actually be navigable! Technological wonders will never cease.

So today was so beautiful that I had to go hiking. I went back to Gwanaksan because last time I didn't actually make it to the top. Remember that scary rock wall with the rope? Tip of the iceberg.

It was like this most of the way up. Every once in a while I would scramble up a good-sized rock pile, thinking I had found the summit. I would break the canopy, only to see that the path dipped and kept going up. And the path got progressively scarier as I went.

I was seriously convinced at this was the summit. I mean, there was a flag on it and everything (you can see it peeking out on the left). But what you can't see is the good-sized dip between my nice, flat rocks and the scary sheer side of that big rock. I approached it, really wanting to get all the way to the top. I studied it, trying to find a safe way up. I almost went for it, but then I had a premonition of my parents getting a letter saying that my body had been found at the bottom of a ravine and I decided against it. I sat down and got ready to eat lunch...

And two old guys came along and climbed the thing like it was nothing. Well, I couldn't let that stand, so I screwed up my courage and went for it. It actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but...

Oh my God! I wasn't the summit after all! Aggggghhhh.

Well, I was tired and hungry, so I sat down here and ate lunch. I had brought riceballs (with bulgogi in them - I won the riceball filling lottery today), water, a bag of satsumas from a roadside stand, and a Twix bar (which had demonstrably less caramel in it than an American Twix bar).

I wish I could capture the perspective better, because the view from up there was dizzying. The rock I was sitting on was so small and sheer on all sides that I felt like I was floating in the air whenever I raised my eyes. There's a valley between the two mountains, so the forest slopes down at a pretty impressive angle. I wanted one of those flight suits so I could glide all the way down.

Eventually I continued my trek to the very goddamn top. And this is where things got interesting. I don't have many pictures of the toughest patches because I was too busy clinging to a rock wall for dear life to get my camera out. But here's one.

I scooted around the outside edge of this thing. And while it looks like there are lots of crevices and platforms, it looks a lot different when your face is pressed against the rock and there's a deadly drop behind you. (Okay, potentially not deadly. But at the very least a multiple-bone-breaking drop).

I don't say all this to make you worry (Mom), but because I'm honestly frickin' impressed with myself for not chickening out again. I made it all the way up, across some really tough terrain. Of course, I was taking the easiest path I could find every time, and I was crawling and clinging to handholds in an attempt to be as safe as humanly possible. And for that, I got laughed at.

You see, all around me, passing me in both directions, were people in full hiking gear who were bounding across these death-courses like mountain goats. At one point I ended up at a cliff edge overlooking a pretty good drop. Four feet across and two feet down was the next platform I needed to get to, and it was less a platform and more a slidey-looking foothold. A man stood on the opposite side, motioning at me to jump. Well, I said screw that. There was a place where I could climb down and back up. It took longer, but it was hugely safer. The man laughed at me and made the jump effortlessly.

At the top I found another of those rock-piles, like the one Eun-mi and I saw in Suwon. I've seen them here and there, but I mostly ignore them. But this one was at the top of a mountain that I had defied death to conquer, so it must have at least some wish-granting properties. I took the shiniest agate I could find and put it right on top.

Then I met this guy. He was hilarious. He's one of those hardcore hikers - notice the brightly-colored windbreaker, hat with large visor, backpack, and fannypack. Also the age. The guy is 75 years old, and he hiked the same trail as me. Man, I hope I age that well.

He was pretty pleased to meet an American. He gave me a drinkable yogurt cup and I gave him one of my satsumas, and we talked about music. He knew lots of American songs, but I don't think he'd heard a single one since 1985. He was pretty firmly entrenched in disco. I swear I am not making this up: he disco-danced as we descended the mountain together.

By the way, the path down was loads easier than the path up.

We talked a lot, even though his English was not so good, and we sang whenever we found a song we both knew. He had a little tape player and speaker in his fannypack, so he blared music out loud wherever we went. When he had the speakers on and we were both singing O Danny Boy at the top of our lungs and in different keys, let me tell you we got some stares.

Oh, and did I tell you that he was pleased to meet an American? He called his friend on the phone, bragged that he had met an American, and made me talk to him.

He was talking about having visited Chicago once, and he kept saying something like "seor bradda." When I kept shrugging at him, he clarified, "Black man."

I laughed uncontrollably. "Soul brother?" I said, "No one says that anymore, I don't think."

Then he reminisced about how "soul brothers" speak funny, asked me if I knew what he was talking about, and stared at me as if waiting for me to do an impression of jive-speech. Geez, Stellar, I know you warned me that Koreans could be racist, but that caught me off guard. Except for the racial insensitivity, he was a fun hiking partner and I had a lot of fun.

Now it's time to play Beyblade with Eun-hyuk. Korean class tomorrow. No worries; after that hike I'll sleep well tonight.