Zen Hiking - Hijacked on a Mountain

You'll soon be treated to a blog entry from Chris, all about our fun day in Seoul and what we saw/did/built etc. However, I'm charged with the prelude to our Sunday outing.

Chris has been planning a trip to the Lotus Lantern Festival for the last few weeks. We intended to stay there Saturday night and come home on Sunday. I threw a wrench in those plans when I came home from work early on Tuesday, down with the full blown Flu. 102* fever, aches, chills and generally miserable. The flight doc told me to stay home for 72 hours, no complaints here. No way in hell was I going to go out in public.

I felt a little better on Friday, but I still needed to take either Motrin or Tylenol every four hours to keep my fever and sore throat tolerable. I felt bad about it, but there was no way I was going to be able to take a weekend in Seoul in the state I was in. I decided to give myself an Ops Check to see if just maybe, we could still go to Seoul on Sunday. I figured if I could hike up the mountain behind our house, then I could take a day of marching around Seoul with two trained monkeys in tow.

It should have been a pretty quick trip. It was only about 3/4 mi. to the "peak", gaining only 500 feet. However, it ended up taking over 2.5 (PILSUNG) hours.

On the way up, there was a huge tower built so that you can see the town below, and off of the side of the trail there many of the usual pieces of public workout equipment. I need to get a picture of what I'm talking about. You can literally get a full workout on the side of the road, and they have these all over the place. Anyhow, I made it to the top pretty quick, marked it on my GPS that was hanging around my neck (took it because there is no way to ask for directions if I got lost, and even if I could ask I would have no idea what they were saying), and then proceeded down the mountain.

Everything was going pretty well, I was making great time, when I caught the distinct smell of Soju. It was coming from the older Korean guy I was about to pass on my way down the path. He said "Hello", so I though..hmmm, he must speak English. I proceeded to ask him how he was doing and try to make some small talk while we were moving in the same direction. Apparently, "Hello" was the limit of his vocabulary. I don't have room to talk. That's about all I can say in Korean as well, so I guess that makes us even.

He was making motion with his hands, and I assumed that he saw my GPS, thought it was a camera and wanted me to take a picture of him and his wife. So I did.

A 10 minute conversation after that consisted of me trying to ask him what his email address was using loud, slow English and sign language. He responded with loud, slow Korean and sign language, we were back at square one. Then he said Mokolli, I replied Mugulli? Koreans say G's like K's. He corrected me. It's said Mokolli, just like brocolli.

From Wikipedia - Makgeolli, also known as Makuly(takju), is a traditional alcoholic beverage native to Korea. It is made from rice (referred to in English as "Korean rice wine") which gives it a milky, off-white color, and sweetness. It is made by fermenting a mixture of boiled rice and water, and is about 6.5–7% alcohol by volume. It was originally quite popular among farmers, earning it the name nongju (농주 / 農酒), which means "farmer liquor".

It also comes in berry/fruit flavors. I think we ended up drinking grape, but I'm getting ahead of myself. He was excited that I knew what mokolli was, (I'll spell it however I like. that's something I've learned over here - you can spell however you want as long as you say it right, it doesn't matter) So we kept walking and found the bar that was at the trailhead. I've ridden my mountain bike through it before and didn't rcognize it as a bar. It's basically a blue canopy like you would use as a sun shade while camping. There were some old ladies in it, and a bunch of old guys sitting outside of it playing checkers and drinking soju. That's what I saw on my bike, and I seriously swerved to keep from hitting them because it's setup at a bend in the trail. This time, I still saw the old guys drinking and playing checkers, but I also saw the menu, a small portable burner and some coolers. I'd assumed it was old folks out for a picnic the last time, but no, it's an off the books bar.

We ended up with mokolli, boiled eggs, kimchi and some Cass beer (the A-10 pilots favorite). I learned that you don't sip mokolli,and you drink it from a BIG bowl. I tried to take a sip, but got a demo-do of how to drink it. 1) Fill bowl 2) Chug bowl 3) Repeat until the bottle is empty. We had a great conversation, he talked a bunch, I nodded, laughed when it seemed appropriate and kept drinking whenever he filled up my bowl.

At some point he said o-ship-o, which is Korean for 55. Did I mention that I know all of my numbers, but that's about it. He was referring to K-55 (I think), which is what the they call Osan AB. He obviously assumed correctly about my short hair and being an American in Korea. When I got to the point where I couldn't down another boiled egg, or see straight, I pointed to my watch and then pointed down the trail. I think he understood, or was too hammered to care, so I pressed on home.

Ops Check good. I figure I drowned whatever flu germs I had left and would be fine in Seoul.