Reaching the Top

So, as many of you may know, I have a good friend here named Holli. She's from the South, she's got an accent, and she is ready and willing to embrace her positive Southern characteristics. One of which, is her love for the mountains. Since I've met her, a mere five months ago, I've heard almost more times than I'd like, her love for all things outdoorsy. Now, she may say that she's not a HUGE outdoors person, but since I come from the city, she's about the most outdoorsy person I know. Anyways, after she effortlessly convinced Dominique to go hiking with her a few weeks ago, and they both came back alive, I began to wonder if it was my time to embrace this countries lovely landscape and try it out myself.

At about this same time, my equally non-outdoorsy friend Fliss also decided that she needed to conquer one of these many mountains before she leaves Korea. So the four of us set a date for early this last Saturday morning to do what no big girl should ever have to do (or should probably do twice a week), hike up a mountain.

As usual, I had to make my round of calls to ensure that these ladies would be at our meeting spot on time, and as usual they quickly obliged and were subsequently 15 minutes late. I've now made it my personal goal to give them a meeting time that is 15-30 minutes EARLIER than the actual time so they will be punctual. Regardless, we met up at Dunkin Donuts and fueled up on coffee and bagel sandwiches. Needless to say, there are a handful of other foods/beverages we should have consumed instead of those. Luckily, I peed about 4 times before we even started the hike, so I didn't need a sheewee! Haha.

Once we finally figured out how to tell the taxi to get us to the mountain (which is only a mere 10 minutes from my house) we stocked up on the Korean necessities: kimbap and oranges. I was also informed that the best items to bring hiking are cucumbers and chocolate. I, however, ignored the cucumber part and only bought chocolate.

While stocking up at the bottom I observed the people around me, and once again was confronted with Koreans inherent nature to dress exactly alike. This has been observed in many situations throughout my presence here. First, and most obviously is what I like to call the carbon copy couple, theres also the missing pants syndrome with girls, but that's pretty self explanatory. The carbon copy couple is when a boy and his girlfriend wear the exact same outfit. Sometimes it's just shirts, sometimes they add the jeans, and sometimes they even have matching shoes. What we can't see, but no doubt occurs due to its prevalence in store windows, is the matching underwear. Yes, matching underwear. Everything from bra, panties, and boxers, or those mini tight short things the men wear. Now, as for the mountain attire, it wasn't as close as the carbon copy couple, but they all definitely had the same stylist (or should i say, lack thereof). It made me stick out even more than normal since I was just wearing my running shoes, a tee shirt, and some workout pants. These folks had jackets and pants that made the "shwishy" sound (waterproof I'm assuming), teamed up with hats, walking sticks, and backpacks half the size of their body. My lack of adequate attire didn't deter me though, I was motivated and ready to go.

We finally started our trek around 11 am and the initial few minutes were a bit shocking. Why is this so steep? When are we going to level off? Why is this so rustic? Shouldn't there be an outhouse somewhere, pavement, and less of a random ass slippery incline? But nope. My preconceived notions of a brisk walk along a smooth scenic path were destroyed by a never ending slope of dirt and rocks. This didn't seem to phase Dom, as she bustled along as fast as she could (no doubt to end the pain sooner rather than later because she was quite hung over). Holli of course was pretty okay with it, but Felicity, well that's another story. While I was quietly contemplating the initial shock and agony, Felicity made it about as obvious as possible within seconds of starting. This is best exemplified by her 10 minute rant on things that we should actually turn around and do instead of this:

"We could get our nails done today."

"What about going to Mokpo today?"

"I saw a great looking restaurant at the bottom."

And finally, "You guys this is fucking boring and it hurts, ALOT." This statement, teamed with her English accent is quite reminiscent of the "It Hurts Charlie" YouTube video.

Luckily, an hour and a half later when we finally reached the top, she got the rush of accomplishment and didn't complain again. This could be because I easily consumed the hiking conversation with my raves of my recent Gym accomplishments or my favorite, the hiking a mountain rap. Many of you may know that I will rock the karaoke mic to "This is How We Do It" and I figured that it would be the perfect beat to make up the best song EVER. On the down side, I didn't record it, so you'll never be able to hear "This is How We Do It 2: Mt Mudeung Style".

Back to the point: I climbed a mountain. We don't even have mountains in Minnesota. It was refreshing, exciting, and sad all at once. Refreshing because I wouldn't categorize myself as an outdoorsy girl, and the workout was great, and I really liked doing something different. Exciting because I was up so high and I used my own to legs to get there. And finally, sad because the whole time I was reminded of memories from long long ago when I was very young and my Dad and I would go on walks along the Mississippi river. I was so young, but enjoyed them so much that I'm still able to remember them, 20 years later. It made me miss my Dad which subsequently made me miss all my family and friends (which I always do, but usually try not to dwell upon). It also made me miss the fact that somehow in growing older I've lost my ability to be excited or entertained with something as simple as a nice walk outside (or in this case, an invigorating uphill battle outside). Rediscovering that ability and thoroughly and whole heartedly enjoying this hike made it a totally awesome experience.

Next on the agenda: Everland (Korea's biggest amusement park) and the DMZ. It should be a pretty awesome weekend, wish me luck! Oh, and sorry for the random placement of pictures/videos. I'm getting lazy.