Seoul, Day Ten.
Happy Birthday Oochie!
Today was...very interesting. I got up around ten thirty and had some yogurt and water for breakfast, then got on the train, and talked to a very sweet old Korean man who was visiting Seoul, but who had lived in North Carolina for the past 25 years. I liked him. And he had an awesome hat. Then I went on my merry way to the northern part of the 3 line to go on the Inwangsa Shamanist Hillside Walk.
Well. First I did something stupid. I went to the train station restroom, and I was sitting there looking at buttons on the wall, and one said "water sound." So I was like, ooh, that must be the button to make the toilet flushing noise, so you can pee without being embarrassed. So I pushed it. But it was broken. So I looked at the other button on the wall, and thought, maybe they installed a new water sound button. So I pushed that button. And it was the call for help button. This very panicked voice came over the intercom, and I apologized, in English, because I was freaked out and didn't have the presence of mind to say "Kuinchanayo," which means, "it's fine, it's okay." So I didn't know if they understood or if they were gonna arrest me so I got out of the train station as fast as I could.
So, boys and girls, let that be a lesson to you. Don't push buttons if you don't know what they do!
Then, up I went, up past the cool painted gate, and the shamanist shrine, and past some really cool eroded rocks. At that point, I was sweating buckets, had stupidly forgotten to bring water, and kind of thought I was gonna die, halfway up the mountain. All the Koreans were zipping past me with their walking canes, and not even glancing at the shrines. My guidebook had advised against taking pictures because it's disrespectful, but I should have, at least from the mountainside, where you could see miles and miles of Seoul. It was really astounding, best view I've seen since the plane. I'd love to have Jason over here, flying with him in a little four-seater plane over all of Korea. That would be perfect.
So, anyway, it was gorgeous, and I has starting to experience some serious heat exhaustion. I sat down a few times, made it most of the way down, got confused, went the wrong way, looked at a shamanist priest who was sorting hot peppers, pointed the other way, and he just gave me one of those classic full-of-decades-of-wisdom nods. Oh, it was the best thing that happened all day.
I make it all the way to the bottom, where this Korean comes up to me and starts talking, half in English and half in Korean, so I conversed the same way. We were at the exact same level vocabulary-wise in each other's languages. Except I had an electronic translator with me. I said I'd made it halfway up the mountain but I needed water (mul). So, he gave me some! Well, it was barley tea actually. And he said "follow me" and we walked partway back up the mountain, until I typed the word "faint" into the dictionary and he got very concerned and sat down with me and we talked and it was really very lovely until he started wiping sweat off my forehead and looking at me adoringly until I got really uncomfortable and said I was going home. And he asked me for my phone number (which still doesn't exist! Yay!) and hugged me for an unreasonably long time until I broke out the teacher voice. "No. You have to let go of me now. I'm going home."
Yeesh. I'm like, all sweaty and disgusting, but for some reason people found me very attractive today. What the heck?
So, I left, bought a bottle of limeade and a bottle of water and drank all of one and half of the other. It was only 3:30 then, and I wasn't meeting Jiyoung for dinner till six, but I decided to go over to her area of Seoul anyway.
Well, little did I know that Itaewon is also on the 6 line!! So, since I'd heard all about how great Itaewon is for foreigners, I got off the train there. And it really was cool! Lots of little shops with 5,000 won specials and specialty stores with shoes and leather jackets and eelskin wallets and celadon pottery. It was a little surreal though, cause hardly anyone spoke Korean. When someone bumped into you, they said "excuse me." If you sneezed, someone said "bless you." (In Korea, if someone sneezes, you pretend it didn't happen, cause it's embarrassing for the sneezer.)
Also! A dude from Afghanistan asked me for my phone number!
Dude, yesterday one guy asked, today two. If this keeps up I am gonna have to carry around a big stick to beat off the men with.
Also! There is a cute little grocery store there that MAKES SENSE (unlike Emart which reminds me of Market Basket times 100), so I am gonna go there for my food buying needs henceforth. And there was a woman on the side of the road selling FISHIES and BUNNY RABBITS. Ohhhh, I so want a bunny rabbit. They were so so so cute. Somehow I resisted. I might decide to get a fishy though. Maybe I should start with plants.
So I hung out there for an hour, bought some nectarines, and went on to Jiyoung's house. Her friend (maybe boyfriend in the future?) KH picked me up, and we packed up food and picnicked by the Han River. Jiyoung made all kinds of stuff, sandwiches and potato salad (Korean style...I didn't really understand but it was good) and roasted potatoes with rosemary, kiwi yogurt, something that she called pumpkin but I sure think it was acorn squash, and grapes. And water and grapefruit juice. She gave me some to take home too, which was so awesome.
It was really lovely. Then we came back, and Jiyoung and I annotated my Lonely Planet guide with stuff we want to do together. She was amazed at how much stuff I can already check off. But I know I'll get busy and then not be able to do as much as I want to, later.
Today I walked 7.67 miles. A lot of that was uphill and up stairs. That's 12.27 kilometers.
Tomorrow: attempt at Korean Catholic church, take two!
Today was...very interesting. I got up around ten thirty and had some yogurt and water for breakfast, then got on the train, and talked to a very sweet old Korean man who was visiting Seoul, but who had lived in North Carolina for the past 25 years. I liked him. And he had an awesome hat. Then I went on my merry way to the northern part of the 3 line to go on the Inwangsa Shamanist Hillside Walk.
Well. First I did something stupid. I went to the train station restroom, and I was sitting there looking at buttons on the wall, and one said "water sound." So I was like, ooh, that must be the button to make the toilet flushing noise, so you can pee without being embarrassed. So I pushed it. But it was broken. So I looked at the other button on the wall, and thought, maybe they installed a new water sound button. So I pushed that button. And it was the call for help button. This very panicked voice came over the intercom, and I apologized, in English, because I was freaked out and didn't have the presence of mind to say "Kuinchanayo," which means, "it's fine, it's okay." So I didn't know if they understood or if they were gonna arrest me so I got out of the train station as fast as I could.
So, boys and girls, let that be a lesson to you. Don't push buttons if you don't know what they do!
Then, up I went, up past the cool painted gate, and the shamanist shrine, and past some really cool eroded rocks. At that point, I was sweating buckets, had stupidly forgotten to bring water, and kind of thought I was gonna die, halfway up the mountain. All the Koreans were zipping past me with their walking canes, and not even glancing at the shrines. My guidebook had advised against taking pictures because it's disrespectful, but I should have, at least from the mountainside, where you could see miles and miles of Seoul. It was really astounding, best view I've seen since the plane. I'd love to have Jason over here, flying with him in a little four-seater plane over all of Korea. That would be perfect.
So, anyway, it was gorgeous, and I has starting to experience some serious heat exhaustion. I sat down a few times, made it most of the way down, got confused, went the wrong way, looked at a shamanist priest who was sorting hot peppers, pointed the other way, and he just gave me one of those classic full-of-decades-of-wisdom nods. Oh, it was the best thing that happened all day.
I make it all the way to the bottom, where this Korean comes up to me and starts talking, half in English and half in Korean, so I conversed the same way. We were at the exact same level vocabulary-wise in each other's languages. Except I had an electronic translator with me. I said I'd made it halfway up the mountain but I needed water (mul). So, he gave me some! Well, it was barley tea actually. And he said "follow me" and we walked partway back up the mountain, until I typed the word "faint" into the dictionary and he got very concerned and sat down with me and we talked and it was really very lovely until he started wiping sweat off my forehead and looking at me adoringly until I got really uncomfortable and said I was going home. And he asked me for my phone number (which still doesn't exist! Yay!) and hugged me for an unreasonably long time until I broke out the teacher voice. "No. You have to let go of me now. I'm going home."
Yeesh. I'm like, all sweaty and disgusting, but for some reason people found me very attractive today. What the heck?
So, I left, bought a bottle of limeade and a bottle of water and drank all of one and half of the other. It was only 3:30 then, and I wasn't meeting Jiyoung for dinner till six, but I decided to go over to her area of Seoul anyway.
Well, little did I know that Itaewon is also on the 6 line!! So, since I'd heard all about how great Itaewon is for foreigners, I got off the train there. And it really was cool! Lots of little shops with 5,000 won specials and specialty stores with shoes and leather jackets and eelskin wallets and celadon pottery. It was a little surreal though, cause hardly anyone spoke Korean. When someone bumped into you, they said "excuse me." If you sneezed, someone said "bless you." (In Korea, if someone sneezes, you pretend it didn't happen, cause it's embarrassing for the sneezer.)
Also! A dude from Afghanistan asked me for my phone number!
Dude, yesterday one guy asked, today two. If this keeps up I am gonna have to carry around a big stick to beat off the men with.
Also! There is a cute little grocery store there that MAKES SENSE (unlike Emart which reminds me of Market Basket times 100), so I am gonna go there for my food buying needs henceforth. And there was a woman on the side of the road selling FISHIES and BUNNY RABBITS. Ohhhh, I so want a bunny rabbit. They were so so so cute. Somehow I resisted. I might decide to get a fishy though. Maybe I should start with plants.
So I hung out there for an hour, bought some nectarines, and went on to Jiyoung's house. Her friend (maybe boyfriend in the future?) KH picked me up, and we packed up food and picnicked by the Han River. Jiyoung made all kinds of stuff, sandwiches and potato salad (Korean style...I didn't really understand but it was good) and roasted potatoes with rosemary, kiwi yogurt, something that she called pumpkin but I sure think it was acorn squash, and grapes. And water and grapefruit juice. She gave me some to take home too, which was so awesome.
It was really lovely. Then we came back, and Jiyoung and I annotated my Lonely Planet guide with stuff we want to do together. She was amazed at how much stuff I can already check off. But I know I'll get busy and then not be able to do as much as I want to, later.
Today I walked 7.67 miles. A lot of that was uphill and up stairs. That's 12.27 kilometers.
Tomorrow: attempt at Korean Catholic church, take two!