When I was younger, my dad used to take all five of us kids out for hikes in central New Jersey. Of course, the trails weren't exactly mountainous, but there were trickling rivers that never ran in a straight line, shaded paths from the many oak and pine trees that scented my clothes for hours afterwards, and the occasional deer or rabbit that froze long enough for you to admire it before it scampered off into the brush. As we got older the trails got more adventurous, and soon nature was whizzing by as we tackled these trails on our bikes, sometimes skidding into rivers, sometimes bushes, or sometimes into my brother, leaving him a scar on his calf from my bicycle chains and a sense of guilt on my end (until, of course, he crashed my car into an unsuspecting curb). Still, the sense of adventure and the appreciation of life outside suburbia and then metropolitan life never left me.
So, following my promise to myself to continue hiking Korea, I set out to hike the "Benevolent King Mountain" or "White Tiger Mountain": Mount Ingwangsan. I got lost about 150 meters up. I sat on a boulder very far off the trail, had lunch and read my book, Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. I found the path again a few bug bites later, and saw gorgeous views and appreciated the last of the season's flowers. I also stumbled onto this very interesting area of old vs. new: a functioning temple grounds with many ornate buildings coupled with old and decrepit housing covered in vines. I felt like a modern day explorer.
I finally left the woods and wandered back through town. Two men were yelling at any brave passerby about the atrocities of North Korean containment camps, blocking the sidewalk. Women were heckling me to buy a bottle of water for 500 won. The subway was crowded and when I met up with a friend for dinner, we had Chinese. I sat there, after what was in effect a leisurely Sunday stroll, trying to figure out where I fit in to all these different aspects of life in Seoul.
