I hiked Mansusan this afternoon and it nearly ended in disaster. First, the weather was less than ideal—it’s been positively balmy and springlike all week, but today was overcast…or perhaps it was this yellow dust from China I’m always told about. At any rate, scenery was not picturesque. As Janaki stated last weekend…we like to think that our outlook on life is independent of such irrational variables as weather, but then a superb day comes along, we feel wonderful, and we realize it’s bogus. Weather affects us. So there I was on my free afternoon, trudging through a mountainside of grey. It was not uplifting.
Second, I encountered some navigational difficulties. I’d neglected to bring my map with me—I didn’t even think about it until I reached Oesan, actually, and then I figured it was nearly useless, anyway, since it is a cartoon map of the entire county and isn’t really faithful to scale, orientation, and other map frivolities. As it turns out, the map wouldn’t have been that useful…because somehow I managed to escape the county. I have no idea how I managed it. As usual, I decided to explore a bit and take a new trail down, thinking it would lead me to the road toward Hongsan…or at the very least, not too far from Oesan. Instead, I was completely turned around and ended up in the opposite direction, nearly to the coast! I’m still confused on how this transpired. It’s a good thing I asked directions, or I would have walked in the wrong direction! The lady must have thought I was crazy, though…asking how to get to some hodunk town over ten kilometers away. Because somehow my three kilometer trail had taken me that far out of the way. So I missed my Hongsan bus and had to detour home. It was very frustrating and I actually found myself on the verge of tears as I half-jogged down the narrow highway, backpack swaying wildly, breath coming faster than it should be. At one point I even contemplated giving up entirely—an incredibly wise plan, to be sure. Well, I did learn what trail NOT to take today…unless I want to go to Boryeong. And I did get to climb up some grey lumps of rock. Otherwise…maybe I wish I’d stayed home to rest. I still feel so tired and my host family isn’t helping matters by waking up at 6 am.
School life is…okay, I suppose. The book has made me incredibly lazy, though—I’ve fallen into the habit of merely glancing through the day’s lesson in the ten minutes between classes, which a) doesn’t give me time to prepare anything else if it’s a bad lesson and b) often doesn’t allow me even enough time to read it through, as I’m constantly interrupted by passing students, urgent needs to pee, etc. I have become an embodiment of the worst aspects of Korean education: laziness and over-reliance on books and technology. Next thing you know I’m going to start punching kids on the head, like one of my co-teachers did today.
This weekend I’m heading off, again, to hike. Jirisan-ho! I’m still not sure which trails I’ll take, let alone what I’ll eat, but I do have a mountain hut reserved for Saturday night. Should be wild times. I’m looking forward to thumbing through Walden (figured it was an opportune time to finally read the thing), drinking tea, wandering through this massive range, and probably starving. At least I still have some mealy apples from last weekend! I can already tell that Monday’s gonna be rough.