Another Monday sweeps by. Only six more to go in 2006!
I’m struggling a little with work these days. I’m feeling really burnt out—I don’t want to teach at all and I think the kids feel it. They have been a little restless lately. I struggle with creating inventive lesson plans and usually settle for lackluster. I’m just getting by and not putting any heart into it. It’s not a good position to be in with seven more week to teach until vacation.
I am just back from yet another whirlwind hiking weekend with Nika. This time we went to Naejangsan, a national park that straddles the border between Jeollanamdo and Jeollabukdo. According to the map I received, the leaves were supposed to be beautiful this weekend, and since I’d never been there, it seemed a perfect time to go. Nika and I had actually been thinking of going for a while…she stayed at a temple there once and wanted to hike across the park and stay there again.
Friday morning after classes, I headed south via bus and train. It was a four hour journey in all, from classroom to trail. It was a little chilly this weekend and the skies were persistently grey, but at least it didn’t rain! I spent the remaining daylight hours hiking the south side of the horseshoe-shaped ridge flanking Naejangsa. A ridge of nine mountains surrounded the temple, of which I only climbed one before dusk descended. The road to the temple itself was lengthy—my guidebook says four kilometers—and here were the most beautiful leaves, so I and thousands of Koreans were distracted from any thoughts of ascent. There were soooo many people here—guess they heard it was the weekend to come, too, and there was also a festival of sorts (but I didn’t go). And, of course, there were persimmons galore to draw crowds. I’ve never seen so many persimmons in my life! Boxes of them literally lined the street. It was madness. It was nice to stretch my legs out again when I did hit the trails, though I was sad I didn’t have the opportunity to conquer more. Considering most Koreans there probably only did the cable car, ate, and bought persimmons, however, I did pretty well for myself.
Then I met Nika for our usual mountain fare. We wanted to try songibaekban—what we thought would be a spread of pine mountain food—but the restaurant we chose was apparently out of it, so we had to settle for plain sanchaebaekban—mountain vegetable platters. And it was a real feast! The waiters first placed dishes the circumference of our table—probably about thirty small bowls of different vegetables and seafood in all. Then they proceeded to stack more dishes on top—probably giving us at least forty dishes. After that, they brought us rice. And finally the grand finale—four steaming platters of additional food, which surprised us because three of them were unfamiliar and nothing else usually comes with this meal. We had a stir-fried mushroom dish, a stir-fried spicy cabbage dish, a fish soup, and a spicy bean soup. By the end, our food covered a table and a half, and we finished almost all of it. It was a wonderful feast.
By then, stuffed with food and tired from walking all day (NIka had arrived earlier than me and had hiked five mountains on the northern side), we were ready to lie down on a warm undol floor and digest. So we found a minbak and slept. Our friend George met us there for hiking the next day—our planned end-to-end big hike.
I woke up really early Saturday morning…probably because we went to bed before ten. We were up and out the door by 7:30 am. It was quite chilly, but we started climbing quickly and warmed up. We planned to hike the southern half of the ridge, then back on the other side of the park to the ridge that surrounded Baengyangsa, where we had arranged to stay the night. There were three peaks to climb on the first ridge--Janggunbong, Yeonjibong, and Shinseonbong. Shinseonbong is the highest peak in the park at a whoppin’ 763m. Then Nika and I hiked a little further to three other mountaintops—Kkachibong, Yeonhibong, and Manghaebong—a little further beyond our trail junction while George did who knows what. Now, these weren’t real full-size peaks—just bumps on this ridge, really. Once you climbed to the ridge, it wasn’t too hard to keep going. In fact, hiking these three additional peaks, there and back (for a total of five climbs), and with a kim break, only took us about an hour and a half. But it still tickled me to think of all the mountains I climbed in one day, so I’ll refer to them as peaks. Anyway, then we descended along the back of this ridge and back up to the other ridge and Sangwangbong, the third highest mountain in the park. It got really cold as we reached the top and I felt very low on energy—this was our ninth ascent of the day and I ate very little beyond persimmons and kimbap—but we had a small snack and from here it was downhill. Only one more mountain and then a rapid descent to the temple. I actually liked this back area of the park the best. The leaves were more spectacular, the scenery more expansive, the mountains more expressive…well, it’s hard to describe. It just struck me as more beautiful and wild than the front. The descent from Baekhakbong to Baengyangsa was especially spectacular (though I would never want to climb this way!). It was a series of stairs down a steep hillside, directly alongside cliffs and colorful leaves. It was a great way to end the day.
Once at the temple, we called Nika’s contact, who led us to dinner and then to bed. We had a great meal—heaping bowls full of bean sprouts, lotus root, mushroom japjae, kim, etc….—but we were so hungry by then we would have willingly eaten anything. We were initially given a room at the temple, but then the monk drove us to a hermitage called Unmunam almost all the way back to the top of the mountain to stay the night. The road was an intense series of winding curves that terminated in our new home, tucked away at the top of the ridge on a steep slope. Quarters were cramped, but it was certainly atmospheric!
We were invited to tea that night by a random monk who stopped by our room just as we were about to turn in at 8 pm. The three of us joined three Korean girls in the monk’s room for an hour of tea, stilted conversation, incense, and pictures. The tea was pretty excellent and much appreciated, as it was very chilly at night on the mountain. I’d been lying on the undol earlier, hoping to draw its warmth into my chilled bones. Tea helped immensely. First we had two rounds of green tea in a fairly elaborate tea ceremony, the formality of which made me nervous because I am not so familiar with Korean tea etiquette. Then the monk brought out the good stuff—one hundred year old tea! It was a brown brick about the size of a loaf of bread, and he said it cost 22 million won! It took me a while to figure out the number he was saying, but I am certain I heard right. That’s about $25,000! That probably equates to $100 for my cup! He said the leaves could be used for three days, but still…that’s quite an investment. He said it was a gift. It certainly had an interesting taste. I liked it all right, but it definitely tasted old. I wonder how, and why, tea of all things perservered through the turbulent last century of Korean history, but I suppose it’s something I’ll have to discover on my own, as communication between us was far from fluent.
We woke up before six the next morning for breakfast, which was another delicious vegetarian feast. I ate so well on this trip…it was worth it just for the food! And then the monk picked us up to take us to the bus station. We missed the bus by ten minutes, unfortunately, and had to wait in the cold for the next bus at nine. We escaped by ducking into a restaurant and sipping green tea.
Nika and I had plans to meet Jacy, an elementary ETA in Gwangju, for hiking at nearby Mudeungsan at ten. It was past eleven by the time we’d all gathered, but it only took us two hours to charge to the top. We lost Jacy’s Korean friends by then, along with most of my energy—three days of hiking takes a toll on the ol legs—but after a series of false summits we finally made it! We sauntered down the easy way, a road that cuts across the mountain, to a temple on the opposite side, where we had a late lunch/early dinner. We’d had a substantial summit snack—tangerines, crackers, kim, and peanuts—but I knew I wouldn’t have another opportunity to eat until I was in Hongsan and I wanted to indulge in the glory of mountain food while I could. So we tried poseot baekban (mushrooms with side dishes). This, again, was a pleasant surprise—a stirfried mushroom platter, with numerous delicious side dishes and a great bean soup. We also got a paejeon and a bowl of rice for free (we only ordered for two, since we weren’t all that hungry). It was actually a really excellent meal, the perfect thing to cap off the days of wonderful eating Nika and I had.
And then it was time to go. There were soooo many people on the mountain…perhaps all of the million Gwangju citizens…and there was a bus backlog. We managed to cram ourselves on a bus, but I had to stand at an angle and cling onto one pole, and on a winding mountain road that is far from comfortable. At least I got to Gwangju station in a timely fashion. And to cap off a great weekend, I had wonderful connections home and arrived safely only three hours later. Too bad I only have a week of thankless teaching to look forward to…