It’s peak hour at the top! This was the scene one Saturday on the highest mount in the Bukhan mountain range north of Seoul. It was enough to convince us to forget about reaching the peak and to head down. This pleased me immensely, as this was one of my first mountain hiking experiences in Seoul, and I was not prepared for a number of things; namely, the amount of hiking we did and the poor choice of hiking boots I had made.
I knew little about the day’s outing. I just followed Sunah, my girl friend at the time, and her friend, catching a city bus to north of Seoul and heading through a park entrance. From then on it was just steps and steps and more steps up. It seemed like they wouldn’t end. Then we headed along a ridge. Some part of the way we came across old walls and guard houses. This initial phase was pleasant enough, especially as there was no more steps.
We stopped to rest on a peak and had a look around. Sunah’s friend motioned in the direct of a peak in the distance, what seemed like a couple of kilometres away. At the time, I didn’t realize that she was explaining that that was where we were heading. It soon dawned on me, though, when we started off and just kept on in that direction. This is when it began to advance from pleasant to a trial. Sure, the views were great, but my feet were just torturing me.
By the time the top picture was taken I already had blisters and skin scrapped from my heels. The boots I had were, I guess, just for street cred because I didn’t get any mountain cred out of them. Getting down was relatively quick, and we ended up at quite a large Buddhist temple—very nice to wander about after a hard hike, not far from which is the park entrance where we caught a bus home, and where I wish we had started from.
Koreans usually wear a hiking boot that is a cross between a gym shoe and a boot–very practically for travelling, too. Now, I have a pair, the ones above.
My hiking experiences after this have all been great. My most frequented hiking grounds have been the Gwanak mountain range near Seoul National University. This area has the added interest of a few old military installations.
After a few hours hiking, it’s good to stop and indulge in some rice wine, my preference being something called huk-ju, which is a cross between bek-ju, a sweet, yellowy coloured rice wine, and the one most people tend to drink, so-ju, a fairly neutral tasting, clear coloured rice wine. That takes out the aches and you forget any tiredness. It makes the journey down almost effortless, especially when employing an mp3 player.
For me, there is nothing like following a trail across the top of a ridge as the sun is setting, you’ve had a half bottle of rice wine, and you’re listening to great music while taking in a great view to the horizon. The sky is is various shades of orange and purple, the rice wine is relaxing the soul nicely, your body is tired but limber, like you’ve done a good afternoon’s exercise, and your listening to something mellow like Led Zeppelin’s “That’s the Way” or anything by The Sundays—those are the times when I think, it can’t get any better than this, . . . why would I ever want to leave this country?
Postscript: one day while hiking the Gwanak range, I took a few photos of the city which shows the extensive apartment style living culture here. What is interesting about one of those shots, the one below, is that when I took it I had no idea I would one day be living in an apartment almost exactly at bottom centre, just to the left of that vacant wooded area.
