Hiking Seoraksan: "What's taking these muggles so long?!"

In Korea, the word “san” refers to a mountain. It took me a little while (time frames aren’t necessary here people) to realize this. After it was brought to my attention, I realized I had been saying Seoraksan mountain…which means I had actually been saying Seorak mountain mountain. Silly me. The same goes for the word “do” meaning island (or province) and “gang” meaning river. So some advice, you don’t have to say Jejudo Island (Jeju island island), or Hangang river (Han river river). Or you could, and feel silly, like me. Do what you want.

Tangent, back on track. There are several mountains/mountain ranges in Korea, but the three tallest (that we can get to, because the tallest is quite inconvenient, being mostly in..uh..North Korea.) are called, in order, Hallsan (on Jejudo), Jirisan (south part of Korea) and Seoraksan (North East side). I hiked Hallsan last October without knowing these details when I visited Jejudo with Sarah and David.

The hiking group I’ve written about before decided to do a Seoraksan overnight bus trip the last weekend in February. Holly and I willingly joined in, once again, not knowing what we were getting ourselves into. But that seems to be the norm in this country so…no biggie. The plan, was to meet at the bus station at 11:30pm Friday night, drive through the night, and hike to the top for a, hopefully, spectacular sunrise. Normally, from what I gathered along the way, most hikers start pretty early, hike to the top, sleep there, and then hike down the next day, making it a two day hike. Not us! NO! We decided to do it all in one day! Nuts!

Let me first start with my three biggest mistakes…I shouldn’t start with my mistakes, but they are necessary for the rest of the story. 1. 3 ½ hours of sleep (on a bus, even better), is NOT ENOUGH for a 14 hour hike. 2. Tennis shoes, no matter what you tell yourself, are not proper footwear for an icy, 14 hour winter hike. 3. Headlamps/a flashlight would be a very, very smart idea when starting at 3am for a 14 HOUR HIKE. In my defense on this one, there is usually a language barrier involving explanations on these hikes. Though it’s never proven to be a huge problem in the past, this particular issue could have been more clearly explained. I also could have USED MY BRAIN and thought about the implications of being at the top for the sunrise, which meant we would have been hiking in completely darkness. *head smack*

Ahem. Moving on. I darted out of work that Friday night, ran to Holly’s, grabbed our bags, and got on the subway to meet the crew in Yongsan where our chartered bus, and new friends, were waiting.

The first thing I saw when I walked down the bus aisle was a KU hat…Rockchalk! Another Kansan was here and after further discussion, we discovered that we actually had a mutual acquaintance. Amazing! We then picked a seat, listened to some interesting instructions from our fearless/funny/energetic/ sometimes frustrating group leader, Warren, and headed to the mountain.

When we arrived, we piled off the bus in a somewhat scattered manner and somehow ended up at the trailhead all together. Warren had gone to the ranger’s office to check on the trail status. When he returned, he informed us that much of the snow had melted off the rocks near the bottom of the trails because of the relatively warm weather the last couple of days. “Oh that’s good” I thought (thinking of my awesome choice of footwear) but it would have been smart of me to let him finish talking before I thought that. Why? Because then he said the very heavy fog was freezing on those uncovered rocks, making for some fairly treacherous footing situations. Optimism! That’s the key! Let’s go crew! And away we went!

It didn’t take us long to realize that there was a potential of losing each other on the ascent. A few other groups of Korean hikers were determined to make the top by sunrise as well, and they were intermingling with our group and getting us all SORTS of confused in the dark. So on our first break someone jokingly said, “We should make a bird call like “coo coo!” so that we know where everyone is in the dark.” Many people laughed at the silliness of this statement…but it soon proved to be a necessary part of our hike. If one group got too far ahead someone would just coo coo! And they would stop and wait for the group. Don’t judge. It worked OK?!

Soon we just accepted the fact that unless we tied ourselves together with ropes, we were going to get separated somewhat. At one point, I was hiking with three complete strangers, but they all had headlamps and were very helpful! In especially hazardous situations they pointed it down at my feet to assist me. Thanks guys.

The first three hours or so of the hike were pretty straight up. It was quite difficult. About an hour into the hike we had to put our “clamp-ons” or, spikes for our shoes, on because we were getting into the heavier snow. These spikes were helpful in the snow but when we would hike on the rocks again, they kind of got in the way. If you had any time to look up instead of at your feet, you would see the sparks when the spikes connected with these rocks.

In the first several hours of darkness we walked over several rivers, and I only know this because I could hear them, scaled some rocks with ropes, lost the trail a few times and thought maybe a canister of oxygen would have been a good idea. Good thing these mountains weren’t that high above sea level. Sheesh.

When it started to get lighter outside, we noticed that the fog was also getting thinner. Could we be near the top!? “In 20 min.” said Warren. This meant another 45 at least. We spotted the top around 6:40, right around the time we came all the way out of the clouds. It was magnificent. It was like a blanket underneath. We stopped to take pictures and realized it would be even better at the top, so even though I felt like I couldn’t lift my legs ANYMORE, I pushed on, and made it. The view was even better. The clouds looked like you could just jump into them and land in fluffy cotton. They slowly flowed over and into the valleys around the area. It was very peaceful. But also very cold, so after spending about 45 minutes there, we headed another 20 minutes to a shelter on the ridge to rest, eat and get more water.

The way down was demanding on the knees. This was made better (and more fun) at times by the snow. You could just sit down, and slide several feet on your bum. You had to be careful of course, for one of these things could happen if you got careless: 1. hit a tree 2. Hit another hiker 3. Fly off the mountain (haha, but seriously) 4. Hit a big bump and break your…rear end 5. Wind up in a river 6. Miss your trail.

We were less careful in getting separated around hour 12, with 2 left to go. We wanted to be done, so some groups split off to try and shave off some time. I ended up with three other guys. One, named Yoon, had just finished working in Australia for a year, so he spoke English very well. After unsuccessfully trying to pass a group of slower Koreans, we became a little frustrated that they wouldn’t stop to let us go by on the very narrow path. Yoon surprised me by exclaiming, “What’s taking these Muggles so long!?” which made me laugh very hard. A Harry Potter reference. Awesome.

So after 14 hours, we made it to the bottom, and stumbled onto the bus. Very sore, but very worth it. A three hour bus ride and a two hour subway ride later, Holly and I walked into the apartment, and passed out. It was a great weekend. The pictures are below!

More stories soon! Sorry that one was so long. Eeks.

Love.

Clouds on the mountain.

Sunrise! Beautiful!

clamp-ons for the snow.


The fog! And a rope we used to climb up steep parts.

Not too long before Sunrise...


A waterfall!

Some of the brave at the very top!

Stories, just stories.

Hello again my lovely readers! Hey guess what…I hit my 6 month mark on the 16^th of March! Woo! It’s downhill from here kids…

I think I’ll keep up my pattern of extreme motivation in writing my blogs for two days and then slack off for the rest of the month, what do you think? (rhetorical, haha) So I’ll be posting two blogs fairly close to each other. The first will be just little tidbits that I’ve found interesting/funny/appalling/ and just downright..well…Korean. While the second consists of the things I’ve been doing the past…month…yikes.

- Weddings: I am fortunate enough to gather a wealth of information from many of my students because I have to find SOMETHING to talk about for several hours a day with adults. If anything else, I’m becoming more talented at stretching a short conversation into a longer one. I get really tired of talking. Haha. Anyway, one such conversation was about weddings in Korea. Weddings are a big deal in every country, but in Korea, it may be the equivalence to a popularity contest. Weddings are almost more important to the parents than to the actual bride and groom. The parents invite ALL of their friends and acquaintances. The guest lists can be outrageous in number, the more people, the more impressive. What’s interesting is, if a set of parents don’t have very many guests, they actually HIRE people to come to the wedding. Say WHAT?! This isn’t really common, but amazed me nonetheless. Guests bring money as gifts and all of the money goes to the parents. Good luck kids for having any money to start yours lives with, it’s going to your mom and dad. Haha.

- Dog story told to me in class: “I wanted a dog when I was a kid. One day, I found one on the street and I took it home to ask my parents if I could keep it.” ~Mickey

“Oh, did they let you?” ~ Me

“My dad ate it.”~ Mickey

“Uhhh….I…umm….Let’s move on to the next question.”~Me

- Korean time: referred to several times since I arrived in Korea. I didn’t understand what it was at first…but basically…it’s a way of saying that Korean’s are almost always late. They joke about it…which is good. In a “bad habit” conversation once, several of my students said their bad habit was being late, and that they have tried to break that habit…but then they laugh…I can only assume it’s an impossible habit to break. I don’t judge, I was on Korean time before I even came to Korea.

-Olympics: I know they were several weeks ago, I’m SORRY, OKAY?! Kim Yuna, before the Olympics people in other countries’ response was “who?” when someone said (attempted to pronounce) her name, but as you now know; she’s the 2010 Gold Medalist in Women’s figure skating. Koreans LOVE LOVE LOVE her. No joke. Like…immortality level, love. Her picture was everywhere before the Olympics even started and she has so many sponsorships, I would be willing to bet that her salary has a near equivalence to Bill Gates’ (I don’t really know). Honestly, I felt pretty sorry for the girl. Koreans tend to develop an intense reverence for specific individuals who have the potential for greatness and success. There isn’t anything wrong with that, because Americans do it too, but when they put all of their hope in a 17 year old girl, she has to feel some sort of pressure. The last time they put their hope in someone was in 1998 when Female golfer Se Ri Pak won the U.S. Women’s Open, and golf became one of the most popular sports in Korea. Now, ice skating has become extremely popular with the rise of Kim Yuna and their extremely successful speed skating team. But, if Kim Yuna came home without the gold, she had the potential of losing millions of dollars in Sponsorships. Wow. Saying that, I admired the calm that she portrayed throughout her whole, and spectacular I might add, Olympic performance. It could be safe to say that she was pretty confident she would win.

As I highly enjoy watching the Olympics every two years, I was a little disappointed that it was difficult finding an English station to watch them. But I made due with listening to the Korean commentators. On the day of the Figure Skating semi-finals Holly and I were at the gym. We both decided that we wanted to watch the top five perform on the big screen upstairs in the main area, so when the time came, we dropped our weights and ran upstairs. What we found was amazing, there were about 30 Koreans gathered around the TVs., anxiously awaiting Kim Yuna’s turn. We watched in amusement while they cheered, gasped and clapped for all the other contestants, except her rival from Japan, she received…silence. Lol. Sad. Then Kim came on, and they were mesmerized. It was an amazing thing to experience, with the yells of excitement and everyone sucking in their breath while they waited for her to complete her flawless jumps. We couldn’t wait to watch it again in the final performance. So at the end of the week, we raced upstairs again, the only two foreigners in a sea of Koreans, but we cheered her on with them when she won, almost 17 points ahead of the silver medalist and set a world record. Amazing.

Also amazing is the rule that Korea has about winning gold medals in the Olympics. This rule only applies to the males of course, because they ALL have mandatory military service for two years. The rule? If you win a gold medal, you don’t have to go to military. So all the gold medals won this year, were an accomplishment for not only these men’s country, but also meant so much more. It meant that their mandatory (and usually dreaded) military service was negated. So, more than just a gold medal? I’ll say.

- Smiling on the subway…and other stories: Subway rides on the Seoul subway system can sometimes be unpleasant. Usually it’s quiet, and always a bit awkward. People are serious and seemingly always in a bad mood. They are usually doing one of the following things: watching something on a portable player, listening to music, reading, sleeping, or staring at someone (like, say, the foreigners). Sometimes you’ll be fortunate enough to get on a train with someone friendly or happy. I always enjoy those people. My favorite is when you spot an individual who’s watching a particularly funny show, and they will just be laughing to themselves. It’s great to watch them just crack up randomly, while everyone else continues with their humdrum attitudes.

I witnessed one day, a boy fall asleep next to his mother. As sleeping in an upright position tends to team up with gravity, his mouth kept falling open. This, apparently, was of great concern to his mother, because she kept reaching over and pinching his mouth shut with her fingers. Very, very strange.

A man, was asleep, with a newspaper tucked behind his head, and over his face. Hmmm.

On a particularly long ride, Holly and I watched (started out sneaky but we gave up and just obviously watched his screen, he laughed) a planet Earth documentary with a Korean next to us who had a dvd player. Soon, three or four more people were involved in the watching, after they saw our expressions (appalled AND disgusted) when a bug ate another bug...or something equally gross, they were curious. I laughed.

I rode from Dangogye (end of the blue line) to Oido (other end of the blue line) last weekend, unintentionally. 50 stops. I never want to do that again. Ever.

Germs, germs on the subway! AHH! A man sneezed, without covering his mouth, and it ended up all over the window. Oh my yuck!

One Saturday morning we got on the subway with an older woman. Later that night, we got back on the subway to go home...with the same woman. What are the odds...THE ODDS!?! Same time, same train, same car, same stop. Bizarre!

-“Tetris Event”: Lately, every time I walk into the office here at work, everyone is glued to the computer. Why I ask? It’s a Tetris event! And what does this mean? Well, after they finish the particular level they are on (because there is no pause button), they explain that a cheese company called Bellcube, has the game of Tetris on their website and if you get a high enough score, you win something. Something worthwhile? I didn’t get the chance to ask, because the next level had started.

One day, Cindy had been playing for 20 minutes, and was particularly proud of how far she had gotten. Then Mr. Kim called her phone to ask something. She successfully answered her phone AND put the long purple block in its place to create a full line, but then her concentration broke, thus ruining her game. She became angry, yelled something in Korean at Mr. Kim, hung up the phone, shouted “I hate him!” and restarted her game, in a very angry manner I must say.

Another day, the middle school boys who come here after school walked in while she was playing this very addictive game. They were being noisy, which wasn’t abnormal for them, and seeing that Cindy was preoccupied, I went out to try and see if I could get them to be quieter, without knowing any Korean, fat chance. Then I saw that they weren’t being their normal loud selves, they were actually in a fist fight, yikes. I started to say “Stop it! Guys!” and then realized how little that would do, so I went back to the office and said, “Uh, Cindy? They are…like…punching each other.” The first thing she did was quickly glance at the screen that shows all the cameras to see what was going on. There are 4 cameras here: main lobby, back classrooms, T.V. room, and in front of the elevator. She saw that they were fighting, and then she saw that Mr. Kim was just getting off the elevator with the other kids. Can you imagine what happened next? She said, “Mr. Kim will take care of it” and continued her game. It was funny. Usually she runs out of the room waving a metal curtain rod to threaten them within an inch of their lives. But right now, Tetris had her undivided attention. Oh Korea.

Love!