Korea: day 4 - Cheonggye Mountain
As promised, President Kim and his wife picked us up at 10am for a hike up a mountain. I know I’m not in shape, but I was going to push myself as much as I had to or could. I heard the last trip Jason came. He’s my size and a smoker and dropped out of the hike some ten minutes in. I didn’t want to do the same.
Hiking mountains is apparently a popular hobby in Seoul. I’d seen a few camping equipment stores in town already. Pres. Kim is an avid hiker and goes every weekend. He usually scales one of the big mountains but today we were going to a little one. At least that was what they told me.
We drove out of the city and through an almost rural area completely covered in greenhouses and flower shops. I don’t know what that’s about. Maybe that’s where all the vegetables in the market come from. Maybe Koreans are just wild for flowers, though I hadn’t noticed.
We drove as far up the side of Cheonggye Mountain as possible and reached a Buddhist temple. I don’t really know what to say about it. There were a great number of worshippers on mats bowing in front of a nifty building… I’ve been reading up on Dharma in the plane coming over, but didn’t see anything regarding shrines or worship. But that’s another post altogether. Anyway, it was a cool experience seeing part of Korean culture. I’m down.
Then we hiked up a mountain. Did I mention I’m out of shape? I would have slowed down the party, but Mrs. Kim was way slower than me, so I felt a little less like a drag. And I appreciated the regular breaks when we had to wait for her to catch up too. If we push forward the whole way I wouldn’t have made it. Pres. Kim could take this mountain in thirty minutes, but it took us over an hour. Strange, that by the time we reached the summit my legs and sides had given up complaining and I felt winded, but not in pain.
dAs is tradition, upon reaching the summit we all took Mokoli (sounds like broccoli), a traditional Korean rice wine. It is milky, and taste like fermented rice. I wouldn’t want it regularly, but it wasn’t bad. There were also vegetables with a savory red dip stuff, and those tiny dried whole fish you might see at the Asian grocery. They were salted and fishy, but not so much like eating a whole fish as I imagined. Mrs. Kim also brought sushi rolls that she made herself, and then sandwiches, and oranges, and she kept cramming food into us. She’s sweet, but has been a mother of three so long she’s lost a piece of her mind.
Finally we’re going down the other side of Cheonggye and into the car and away. As I’d mentioned, Koreas will park their cars anywhere, so the narrow two-lane road up the mountain is a narrow one-lane road and the only way up or down. That’s right. I found myself in the middle of a Korean standoff; half a dozen cars behind us wanting to get out, and another half dozen or more wanting to get in. It is times like this where you learn about Korean principles like no other. As best as I could tell it was concluded without yelling or gnashing of teeth that those going up outnumbered those going down, and the going down group would have to back up the mountain into whatever parking they could find so the up group could continue. Since we were the front of the line we became the back of the line and drove backward about a half mile. Pres. Kim was clearly put out by it all because once our way was clear he tore out at homicidal speed.
We suddenly stopped in this little mountain suburb (or was that a town? There’s no place where civilization is missing so I don’t know.) I followed our host into a little restaurant where we met two of his high school friends and we all sat down to eat supper. (Didn’t I just get stuffed on top of a mountain? Oi!) More Mokoli, Korean pizza, which is vegetables and whatever mixed into a bread batter, and pan-fried into a pancake like thing. Good, but misnamed. There was soft bean curd in a spicy soup, and hard bean curd in blocks on a plate, and kimchi because there’s always kimchi, and a bitter salad.
The two guys we met were pretty friendly old dudes; one a heavy smoker, both smiled a lot. Tony insisted later that there is no homosexuality in Korea, and it might just be different custom, but they seemed like a couple of sweet old fags. Even if they weren’t, there’s no way I believe no one is gay in Korea.
After all that we were dropped back at the hotel early at about 7pm. I thought this was my chance to slip out on my own in the evening when stores were open, but instead I collapsed into bed. I couldn’t help it.