Friday, August 9, 2013

A Visitor! And a Visit to Seoul

Seoul
It's been a very busy 10 weeks since I last wrote. That's one thing I love about life here. It can always be busy. If I have an empty weekend ahead of me I can catch a bus or a train and spend a day or two exploring new places. If I can't sleep at night I can go out to a coffee shop to read or write, or pretend to while I soak in the sounds of the conversations around me. There are always people out. There is always something to occupy my time. Sleep is often hard to come by, even when there is ample time for it. There's so much else to experience. I'm in Korea, and I feel much more in Korea when I'm out of my apartment, so I try to avoid it often.

All of this is to say I've been neglecting this blog, and there's so much to catch up on. I'll start with early June.
Our hosts in Seoul
It had been just over a year since the last time I'd seen Alexander when he walked through the doors at the bus terminal in Gwangju, the end of a long, long journey for him. I was thrilled to see him. I'd been in Korea over ten months at that point, so getting to see family was a special treat. It made me feel more connected to home.

At first, having Alexander here was a bit surreal. I enjoyed having the opportunity to guide him around in the mornings before I went to work and to take him to some of my favorite restaurants to eat after I got out of work at night. He had just over three weeks to be in Korea, so we planned to use each weekend to take a trip out of town. For the first weekend, Hyun-ho and his family invited us to visit them in Seoul, an offer we excitedly accepted.

On Saturday morning we caught the slow train from Songjeong station. I've taken a "slow" train before, I think the Saemaeul. That train was q bit slower than the express train, the KTX, but was still rather comfortable. Alexander and I ended up on the Mugunghwa, the even slower train. I didn't realize how much longer that ride would feel. It wasn't very comfortable, and with a travel time of over four hours we could have arrived in about the same time by taking the bus. The train ticket was actually about the same price as a bus ticket, however, if not a bit cheaper.

Another advantage to the train system here is that the KORAIL website can be viewed in English, making it easy to search and reserve tickets ahead of time without knowing Korean. After that ride to Seoul, I used the website while sitting in a coffee shop to book our tickets back to Gwangju on a KTX train. The KTX, by the way, is excellent. It is fast (reaching speeds of around 300kph at its fastest between Seoul and Gwangju) and comfortable, though a bit pricier. The KTX can get you from Seoul to Gwangju, a distance of about 300km, in just under 3 hours for less than 40,000 won.

After arriving at Yongsan Station, we took the subway to Dongdaemun, where we planned to meet Hyun-ho and his cousin Jin-hee, whom I met when I went to Seoul for Chuseok last September. Alexander and I had lunch at Nolboo, a chain restaurant I'd been curious to try. We ordered one of my favorite Korean dishes: dalkgalbi. I tried this for the first time when I was in Seoul in the fall and Hyun-ho took me to a dalkgalbi restaurant in Gangnam for lunch when I arrived at the bus station. It's marinated chicken (dalk) that's usually a bit spicy, cooked with a mixture of ddeok (rice cakes), cabbage, and other vegetables on a big pan in the center of the table. You can also add cheese and noodles or other sides of your choice. Alexander and I had a version that included octopus, which added a tantalizingly chewy texture to go along with the chicken.

After lunch Jinhee arrived at Dongdaemun and met us, followed shortly thereafter by Hyun-ho. We walked around the markets for a while before continuing on to Insadong. After looking around there for a while, we walked along Cheonggyechon to Gyeongbokgung Palace, which I seem to visit nearly every time I'm in Seoul. I don't mind, though. The palace is an impressive site and is a very large complex so there's still a lot of it I haven't seen. This was one of the sites Hyun-ho showed me when I first went to Seoul, and I enjoy going there with people who haven't seen it before. Alexander seemed to enjoy it, and we could have spent a lot more time exploring the grounds were it not nearly closing time.

As it was, though, we were getting a bit hungry and tired from our walking that day, so as the palace closed we left the grounds and started walking toward the Blue House, the residence of Korea's president (currently Park Geun-hye.) From that area Hyun-ho's father picked us up and drove us up into the mountains, where we were able to get some great views of the city, and took the picture shown above.

Finally, it was time to go to Goyang and have dinner with their family. Here's a photo of the food they had prepared. It was, of course, very delicious. Pajeon, galbi, sashimi, jjigae, kimchi, seasoned anchovies...I can't remember all the different dishes we had. The great variety in Korean meals is one of the things I most enjoy about the food here.
A delectable home-cooked meal
I may have written about this back in the fall. If so, it bears repeating; if not, that was a serious oversight. I have been very lucky to have this connection in Korea. Visiting Hyun-ho and his family feels like reconnecting with some deeply caring extended family. That's how I felt during Chuseok, so I'm glad Alexander was able to have a similar experience. I think a large part of what has made me feel so comfortable in Gwangju this year is the knowledge that they're just a few hours away. We may not be able to speak to each other very well, but I always feel welcome and cared for with them.

Hyun-ho's family kindly put us up in their home for the night, and in the morning drove Alexander and me to the City Hall area. We had scheduled a DMZ tour that departed from the Lotte Hotel. At around 8am we boarded our tour bus and departed for Paju, a city near the border. Most of the tourists were Japanese, but the two of us and another group of four Americans also had an English-speaking guide assigned to us.

The DMZ tour was probably the most touristy experience I've had in Korea, which I suppose is to be expected when you consider how strictly controlled activity near the DMZ is. Our tour included a video presentation and a tram ride into an infiltration tunnel, as well as stops at the last train station before the border and at an observation deck from which we could look out into North Korea itself. It was hazy that day so the view was somewhat obscured, but we were still able to make out the Kaesong industrial complex (sadly, still shut down as of this writing, though there's been talk that it will open soon) and the city of Kaesong, which is North Korea's second-largest.

We arrived back at the hotel in the early afternoon, and then Alexander and I went to Hongdae. My friend Miji planned to meet us for dinner. We had some time to kill before she could meet us, so we found the Hongik University campus and walked around it for about an hour before finding a coffee shop to cool off in and utilize the free wifi. Then, Miji found us and took us to a little stand serving some very tasty tacos. As sunset approached it was about time for us to catch the train, so back to Yongsan we went. We bought some snacks at the station and boarded the KTX for the swift and smooth ride home. I don't remember for sure, but it's very likely that after we arrived in Gwangju we stopped my favorite coffee shop for some bingsu before retiring for the night to prepare for another week.

Of course, there were more adventures to be had, which I will describe in future posts. Next up, Gyeongju!

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Honam Gukje Marathon in Gwangju

Sunday, April 21, 2013

When my alarm went off at 6:30 AM I actually woke up and stayed up this time. After eating a couple of bananas I changed into my running shorts and singlet and applied sunscreen to what I thought was all my exposed skin. I grabbed my sunglasses and Powerade, laced up my New Balance shoes (veterans of a previous marathon), and left my apartment.

It was cool enough outside that I preferred jogging to Sangmu Citizens' Park (just a few blocks from my apartment building) in order to stay warm. I had the feeling it was going to get rather warm during the course of the race, so I decided not to wear a base layer under my singlet. Since the course was to follow the path along the Yeongsangang, there figured to be very little respite from the sun (which became painfully obvious to me when after the race I noticed two red patches behind my shoulders outlining the space between the edge of my singlet and the reach of my hands).

Being so near to the starting line helped calm the nerves I normally feel on a race morning. I didn't need to worry about traffic or catching a subway, just a leisurely 10-minute jog to a park I've visited quite often. With about ten minutes to spare, I went onto the soccer field with other runners and tried to stay loose until the call for marathoners to come to the starting line (which would be translated for me by the movement of a bunch of people in running shorts and singlets toward the start line).

I got my cue and took my place among the other runners. The crackle of a few fireworks shot into the sky above the track started the race, and within a minute I was across the line and rounding the curve of the track toward the path out of the park. With about 125 participants registered for the marathon, including 6 foreigners, this was the smallest event I've competed in. There was also a half marathon, a 10K, and a 5K being run, but the start times were staggered by 10 minutes. As a result, there was a lot more room to breathe at the start.

Once outside the park the course turned onto the street leading to the river path. When I go for runs I usually use the bike path on the riverbank. The marathon followed the wider service road on the levee along the river. The pictures in the blog show different parts of those paths and I took them during a walk the week after the race.
Sign on the bike path showing the distance to Naju
A small part of the course overlapped part of the half marathon course I ran on March 1, which Lily wrote about in her blog. This was near a visitors' center for the bike path, and a water station was set up in front just as it was for that previous race. I was carrying my own sports drink in fear that I may start to dehydrate in the hot sun I was anticipating, so I skipped the first several water stations. It was nice to see a reminder of that previous race, though, and feel somewhat familiar with at least part of the route ahead of me.

Yeongsangang bike path visitors center, seen from the river bank
Here are some pictures of the view from the balcony behind the center:

toward the airport-a plane landing

upstream


downstream





the road the course followed
The first twenty kilometers were somewhat of a blur, as usual. I tried to look around a lot to take in the views and soak up as much of the experience as I could. I sort of latched onto a group forming behind a couple of pacesetters for a while, but broke off when they slowed at one of the water stations. Truth be told, however, the memories of the early parts of these races tend to be overpowered by what comes afterwards.

A turning point in the race came at kilometer 21. Just before the half-marathon turn-around, I heard a voice call from behind me, "For Boston!" A few moments later, I was passed by a woman I met while running the half marathon in March. She'd suggested in a group event for the race on Facebook that the foreigners in the marathon wear some symbol of support for the victims of the bombing the previous week. I thought it was a good idea and had taped a message on the back of my singlet. As she passed me I reciprocated her words of encouragement, and saw that she had written a message for Boston on the back of her tank top. A few meters later she crossed her halfway mark and headed back toward the finish line. I nodded toward her in acknowledgement and continued on.

While running along the river provided some wonderful scenery. Mountains that had always been hazy silhouettes in the distance during my previous runs approached closer and closer as I chugged downstream. With the half-marathoners no longer among our ranks, the number of runners on the course decreased dramatically, and the course became much lonelier. The only spectators were the people gathered at the aid stations every few kilometers and the occasional policeman posted at mostly empty intersections.

Everything was new for me on this part of the course. After about an hour and a half we crossed a bridge that I'd noticed on the bus ride to Wando the week before. This brought us to the opposite bank of the river, where we stayed all the way to Naju.

After crossing the bridge I finally took advantage of one of the aid stations. They had a bowl of banana halves at one end of the table, and I slowed down to grab one. A volunteer behind the table greeted me in English: "Hi!"

"Hi! Thanks!" I replied, speaking for the second time that day.

"Fighting!" she called as I resumed running.

As we followed the bike path toward Naju I was surprised to see a farm with a bunch of animals that looked like reindeer. It's nice to come across things like that to help take my mind off of the running, which was about to become much more difficult.

I saw another bridge in the distance and hoped we wouldn't cross it, that the halfway point was closer than that. I noticed banners hanging from lightposts along the street next to the path when we came up an incline onto a long straightaway: 나주. I had seen in the registration packet that the turnaround was in Naju, and I felt a mix of relief and dread to know the distance was about halfway done.

Indeed, near the end of the long straightaway was a chip reader laid across the asphalt just beyond a sign marking 21 km. I crossed the reader and rounded the imaginary corner to repeat in reverse all the ground I'd covered in the previous two hours.

Anticipating a drop in my energy, I forced myself to eat part of the energy bar I'd stuffed in my pocket. Long-distance running makes me hungry in that way that makes eating unpleasant, especially when I'm still running. I remember from my childhood days of team swim practices. After swimming for an hour, I'd be ravenous and could eat bowls of oatmeal and several waffles or whatever else my grandparents might cook up when I walked to their house from the pool. After running for two hours, I know my body needs more calories, but the taste of any sort of food tends to make me feel like I do at the end of a big meal, when I sometimes decide that even though I don't want to eat those last few bites of dessert, maybe later I'll look back and wish I had if I don't.

What I really feel like doing by that point of a race is slowing down to a walk, having a nice, cold, lightly sweetened drink like lemonade, and laying down for a nap for a couple of hours before waking up to eat a nice, big, well-deserved meal. And that's what would be waiting for me at the finish line, just 21 km away.

After getting down half the energy bar, I stuffed the remaining half back into my pocket and took a few sips from my Powerade. In about twenty minutes by my estimate I figured I'd be passing that aid station where I'd had a banana before, so I planned to make myself eat more when I got there.

I really did try to remember to keep appreciating the scenery while I ran, and I did look around from time to time in an effort to immerse myself in the thought of how exhilarating it was to be in the moment of achieving my goal of completing a marathon here in Korea, halfway around the world from my home. Look around you! That's Korea! The effect was more muted than it had been before, as the pangs in my stomach and the encroaching fatigue in my legs sent stronger and stronger signals to my brain.

A group of accidental spectators were gathered along the street in front of the Yeongsangang Culture Hall near the bridge. While they were not as enthusiastic as most of the volunteers at the aid stations, it was nice to see a crowd of people and pretend they were there to offer support for those of us who had decided to spend this sunny Sunday morning trudging up and down the banks of the river for a few hours. In reality, I think mostly they had noticed something going on when they came out of whatever event they'd gone to the hall to see and in curiosity or boredom had gone over to see what it was.

Shortly after that, it was time to recross the bridge to the lonelier side. By now the runners were very spread out, and I often felt like an island with the nearest runners a hundred meters ahead of me, with some unseen and unheard runners quickly approaching to overtake me. During this stretch I really enjoyed hearing the occasional "Fighting!" from the bored policemen manning the intersections.

"Fighting!" I tried to shout back at one point. You have to put equal stress on both syllables, which I mangled in my breathlessness.

When the empty feeling in my stomach and my legs intensified to the point where I felt like walking, I told myself to get to km 30 before I took any breaks from running (which at that point could barely be called running). However, around km 26 I relented and slowed to a walk. I allowed myself to walk to the next km marker, and then I forced myself to run the entirety of the next kilometer, and a bit further. Then I walked again, until I approached the next aid station.

Spectators and volunteers are my favorite part of marathons. Some people find the desire of marathoners to spend hours at a time running incomprehensible. I'm more in awe of the willingness of these people to spend even more time standing by watching people run (mostly slowly) for hours at a time, and cheering them on. Seeing those smiling faces and hearing their shouts of encouragement (even those I can't understand) make a tremendous difference for me when trying to get through those miles after the wall, when the last thing I want to think about is the fact that I still have 8 miles to run. Instead, I soak up the energy they send me and find myself with the energy to run again as I pass them, and walking or running, eventually there's 7, then 6, then 5, then 4 miles to go. And from there the anticipation of the finish line with its celebratory crowds starts to tow me along to the final stretch, where all of a sudden I feel great because I want to get there as quickly as possible and cross the line and have it all behind me.

My parents had been to every marathon I ran to this point. They drove to Chicago to watch me run my first one in 2009, and they were there on the sidelines in the five I ran in St. Louis over the next three years. While they sent their well-wishes to me before this race, I knew it would be much different coming across the finish line and not having them there, that it might feel slightly diminished despite my relief at my accomplishment. So I was thrilled when I came across the line and immediately saw Sarah and Lily cheering from just beyond the finish. Seeing friendly faces is such a joy at that exhilarating and exhausted moment, and these are two of my closest friends here in Gwangju.


After the race I was famished, so we decided to go to the newly-opened TGI Friday's near my apartment building. Lily and Sarah went ahead to the restaurant to order while I hobbled home to take a quick shower. When I made it back, a nice bread bowl of pasta was waiting on the table for me. Friday's is a restaurant I like to go with friends back home, so it felt like a fitting place to be that afternoon.

As hungry as I feel after a race like that, it gets to be a tedious chore finding the energy to make myself eat enough to last more than a couple of hours. I ate very slowly, taking long breaks between bites and enjoying the company on a clear, sunny afternoon. The time I'd recorded is the slowest marathon I've ever run, and I walked more than I have in any other race, but when I got back to my apartment and laid down for a long afternoon nap I felt complete contentment that I'd experienced a marathon in Korea and that I'd been able to share it with some great friends.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

An Afternoon in Wando at Sinji Myeongsasimni Beach

 Sinji Myeongsasimni Beach

Although I didn't blog much about Korea during the winter months, I've still been thoroughly enjoying my time here despite the cold and all the bluster coming from the north. I feel that during the winter, especially January and February, I really settled into some routines and didn't keep up with the blog as I did in the fall. As I head into the final quarter of my contract, however, I hope to go beyond the routine more often and write about it on here once in a while.

The weekend after the Strawberry Festival Lucy and Rufus again invited me to join them for another Saturday outing. This time the outlook for the weather was bright and sunny, and it seemed a trip to the beach was in order. They did a great job of finding a spot and planning it out. Basically all I had to say was "Sure" and they led me from there.

We met at USquare Saturday morning and bought bus tickets for Wando. The ride took about two hours, including a stop in Haenam. From the Wando bus terminal we took a local bus to Sinji, which dropped us off in front of a huge sign for Myeongsasimni Beach, our destination. I've heard the beaches of Wando recommended on numerous occasions, but last fall I'd been wary of wandering down there without a clear idea of how to navigate from the Wando bus terminal to the beaches. It turned out to be pretty simple, and I can see myself making several return trips this summer.

From the bus stop it was a short walk across a small parking lot to the boardwalk and the beach. Granted, I haven't actually visited many beaches in Korea, but I could immediately tell this was the best one I'd seen so far.

It really was pristine-looking, and the fact that I hadn't seen the ocean since being in Taiwan on New Year's Eve added to the impression. The sand was soft and strewn with colorful shells, many intact. While we set up our spot on the sand some other groups wandered down toward the water, looking out over the tide and the distant seaweed farms toward the islands ringed around the horizon.

Eager to test the waters, we dropped our bags and shoes and headed for the edge. The water, as we expected, was frigid. Yet it felt great to be standing in the ocean again, even if I didn't have it in me to go in more than a few inches up my legs. Within a few minutes the sting of the cold was gone, but a numbness was setting in, so I went back up toward the dry sand to sit and take in some of the beautiful unblocked sunshine. After having been burned on the first day of our ski trip, I was well-prepared with a bottle of sunscreen this time, and I carefully covered my face and neck. Even the faint smell of sunblock led me to fondly recall being on the beaches of Florida and North Carolina last summer, and I excitedly imagined future, warmer beach outings this summer.

Shortly thereafter our appetites roused us from the comfort of our sandy seats to seek out a culinary establishment. We followed the boardwalk toward a row of shops, and we hesitated in front of one to examine the specimens in its fishtanks outside the front door. Some people inside called out to us in English, welcoming us in. A couple of tables were occupied by groups of cheerily conversing Koreans, and we sat on the floor around our own table in the middle of the restaurant. Our lunch was abundant and delectable.
Back out on the beach we again reveled in the return of such warm weather, though like the Koreans around us we did remain fully dressed. It wasn't quite hot enough yet to push the boundaries by bringing out the swimming trunks yet. I reclined on the sand and read some of Graham Greene's The Quiet American before going back out to the water to feel the tide rushing in.
There were dozens of people spread across the long stretch of warm sand now, and it was very comforting to hear people enjoying the day so much. I again became somewhat entranced by the tide, letting my eyes roll along the crests of the miniature waves as they broke. From time to time fish would jump out of the water, and I began to watch for their silhouettes in the waves as they rose and were lit by the sun.

I didn't go any further than this. I had rolled up my jeans above the knee and the water was starting to get to them when it splashed against my legs. I wore my hoodie the whole time as well, feeling comfortable with the temperature and in concert with some of the locals who walked along the beach in winter coats. With my feet again becoming numb from the cold water, I waded back to the shore, picking up some shells along the way.

I had noticed this in the sand on my way out into the water:
By the time I got back to that spot some slightly stronger waves had washed it mostly away. Best of luck to those two anyway.

The others had some obligations back in Gwangju in the evening, so we gathered our things and made our way back up the boardwalk toward the bus stop. Before going back through the thin line of pine trees I pulled out my camera for a few more pictures. 

In the next few months I hope to visit more beaches around Korea, especially here in the southwest. Even so, I think it will be worth revisiting Sinji Myeongsasimni at least one more time, during the real beach season, which begins next month. Then my pictures will probably include many more people. From a quick glance at the regional map of Wando we saw at the bus terminal, there are also many other beaches that could be worth exploring in the area.

I noted my surroundings in anticipation of a return in the near future as we rode the bus back to the Wando terminal. From there it was a relaxing two-hour ride back to Gwangju as the day faded into evening.

Nonsan Strawberry Festival (논산 딸기 축제) April 6, 2013



                When my alarm rang at 7:00 I turned it off carelessly. In fifteen minutes the next alarm would wake me for good, as it always does, usually.
                When I next woke I was ominously refreshed. Sure enough, I checked the time on my phone and saw it was 8:05. The bus to Nonsan was scheduled to depart at 8:30. “Shoot,” I grumbled as I jumped up and went to the stairs, doing some quick estimates. If I could leave my apartment by 8:20 I could get to the bus with a couple minutes to spare. Fifteen minutes to shower, dress, and brush my teeth? Possible, but I hadn’t a moment to spare.
                It was the fastest I’d gotten ready in years, and even with the stroke of good luck of a taxi waiting directly in front of my building, I was running to the bus and boarded a few minutes after 8:30. Fortunately it was a charter bus, and the tour leaders were waiting on a few more people; we didn’t start moving until around 8:40, by which time I’d found a seat near Sarah, Rufus, and Lucy at the back of the bus. We were in for a cold and rainy day according to the forecasts, but, as I learned on our ski trip to Muju, those three are such great travel companions that I didn’t much mind the prospect of bad weather.
                We had somewhere between an hour and a half to three hours of bus ride between us and Nonsan. All I really knew was that it was somewhere north of Gwangju. Once Sarah had mentioned the trip I was sold immediately by the prospect of getting out of Gwangju for the first time since the trip to Muju and I didn’t do any more research. Nonsan is not Gwangju, and it has strawberries; that was more than enough for me. I could figure out the details whenever I woke up and we were there, so I put up the hood of my coat and leaned back in to the softly jittering rumble of the bus.
                We were about half an hour nearer our destination when the tour leader got on the microphone to end our naps and give us slightly more information about what we’d be doing that day. It would be cold, yes, but when we arrived at the strawberry farm we would be able to pick strawberries inside. For 10,000 won we could eat all the berries we wanted, and then either fill a small box with some to take home or take a jar of jam.
                And now, please tell us, what is your name, where are you from (which state if you’re from the states, please), and what is your job? I remembered doing a few of this sort of introduction from my first months here. In most circumstances, being in a place for eight months leaves you in a situation where you’re still very new. If this were school, I’d still be a freshman, after all. But in Korea, most of us work on one-year contracts, putting me closer to the end than I am to the beginning, with more farewells before me here than hellos. It’s not a great attitude to take up, I admit, but it’s basically the sense I had as I casually stated, “I’m Trevor, from Illinois, and I’m a hagwon teacher,” into a microphone for a bus full of strangers whose faces I couldn’t see. And then I heard a string of names with no faces and states and countries. It was a strange exercise. Our tour leader would have done better to just ask each of us conversationally as he collected our money.
                The next time I woke up I looked out the window as we crossed a bridge. On the banks of the placid grey river below, next to the expansive parking lot, sat a few figures encased in well-fluffed jackets. They huddled over their reels, watching the lines reaching beneath the surface.
                From a lightpole on the bridge a sign with one corner untethered flapped violently in the wind, with brief respites that were just long enough that my gradually-improving Korean-reading skills were able to make out the words “논산 딸기 축제” Nonsan Ddalgi Chukje. Nonsan Strawberry Festival. 논산 (Nonsan) is the name of the city. 딸기 –ddalgi – strawberry: I learned this word when I grabbed an appetizingly pink bottle from the cooler at 7-11 on my way to work one particularly bleary early afternoon last fall. When I sat down at my desk and unscrewed the cap, I slowly read the label: 딸기 라떼 – ddalgi latte – strawberry latte. 축제 –chukje – festival: I picked this one up during January intensives, when I was giving my class of middle schoolers a quiz of twenty vocabulary words every weekday morning at 10:10 a.m., and grading the quizzes over lunch. This was when I made most of my progress in reading Korean. Some of the words were given in Korean, and they’d write the English word, and some were the other way around. Festival was the other way around, so after reading over 13 quizzes to make sure 축제 was written correctly it stuck with me.
                The sign, with its crisp picture of a strawberry halved so that its white interior outlines the shape of a heart, suggested we were near our destination, though according to the clock we’d only been on the road for an hour and a half. The low estimate gladly proved to be accurate; we took the next right and came to a stop in the parking lot near the chilled fishermen.
                Alright, we’re here. Come back to the bus at 3 and we’ll go pick strawberries.
                Got it. 3 o’clock. So we have…5 hours. I forgot to bring an umbrella.
                We stepped off the bus and into the rain, and looked out toward the festival to see what the next five hours might have in store for us. I think we were all a bit underwhelmed. Somehow I’d imagined a sunny afternoon spent in some hilly fields among rows and rows of strawberry vines. Even when people warned me the weather wasn’t going to cooperate that weekend, the scene still played in my imagination as an afternoon of squinting in the bright sun while surveying vast stretches of rich green with luscious red blotches hanging out over the columns of recently-plowed soil, gently reflecting some of the warmth it had taken in from the intense sun.
                The bridge we’d crossed on the bus provided some relief from the rain, and we stopped underneath it for a few minutes to get a closer look of the setup. Beyond the concert stage set up near the edge of the river in front of the paved parking lot ran three columns of white tents, waiting for us to come peruse their contents while we strolled past in the rain, our feet pushing down the mesh the organizers had stretched over the ground so we wouldn’t sink into the mud but only into shallow puddles of murky grey water that formed around the soles of our feet at each step.
At the entrance to the festival
                Some of the vendors we passed called out to us with exhortations to come sample their wares, warming themselves up for a day of hard selling to try to mitigate the damage done to their business by the grey skies and cold winds. I did try a bit of jam, though I passed up the kimchi and some other concoctions I didn’t go close enough to identify. Most of the vendors paid us no special attention, watching us pass while saving their efforts for those who could understand what they would say and possibly buy what they sold. I spent enough hours standing damp and chilled in the pit of Harvard Square shouting to potential tour-takers to understand their resignation. I also gave enough hour-long tours to groups of Chinese tourists with minimal English skills to have some idea of the self-consciousness and futility one can feel while giving a pitch that’s doomed to incomprehensibility. I could empathize with the vendors’ reticence.
                We then came to a tent whose contents I hadn’t expected. We first noticed the snakes, mostly motionless in their bare, barely secured glass cases. Not far away a group of children leaned excitedly over plastic crates containing baby bunnies, mice, chicks, and hedgehogs. They hummed gleefully as they held the furry creatures or watched the tiny mice crawl over the sleeves of their coats, and I like to imagine the animals were thankful for the warmth offered them against the unseasonable chill by those miniature hands. We looked on from a distance for a few moments to discern what animals were there before moving along to the bigger cages.
                A larger enclosure surrounded a group of branches on which various tropical birds perched, including a parrot patiently enduring the persistent efforts of a young couple to teach it to say “Annyeong”. I listened intently, hoping they would succeed. Until then I hadn’t realized how much I’d like to hear a parrot mimic a language other than English. This parrot, however, seemed to content to show off only its listening skills, and we walked to the other side of the birdcage, deeper into the miniature zoo.
                Pressing against the far side of its cage was a skunk, stripped, we assumed, of its noxious potential. About a meter away was a brown raccoon, pacing back and forth, dipping its snout into the corner each time, involved completely in the business of looking busy checking for a way out.
                The porcupine in the next pen seemed to be making more progress. His pen was really more a loose affiliation of short wire fences without a covering on top. He repeatedly reared up and dove into the lower portion of the back side, sliding the fence back a few centimeters before he immediately commenced scraping away at the ground at its base. If the ground hadn’t been paved over with landscaping bricks he may have had some chance of escape that way. As it was we hoped he’d figure out that a strong pounce above the short fence’s center of gravity might tip it enough for him to make his way over it, and then perhaps under the loose back of the tent undulating slightly in the wind, and safely across the road and sidewalks, and maybe on to some semblance of a natural habitat somewhere, though I hadn’t had a good look at our surroundings on the drive in to know where that might be. I didn’t think that far ahead at the time. I just wanted for him to get out of that enclosure in what I was beginning to recognize was a bleak and likely miserable existence.
                The furry creature we saw in the next cage rushed frantically from the front to the back of its few square feet, ramming its head into the bars, its rapid breathing audible from a couple of meters away. I was beginning to feel guilty for looking, yet I kept a grin affixed to my face. ‘Who am I to frown?’ I thought. ‘I’m looking at this of my own volition, after all. And what good would it do to reflect the misery of these creatures back at them, only to walk away, having done nothing?’
                Near the end of the line was a monkey, sprawled out on his back on the floor of his cage, two of his long limbs reaching up and out, gripping the bars. He’d roll his head around from time to time to glance at his audience. I watched him in amusement, taking some comfort in the carefree and bored expression on his face. Among the rattle of skulls against metal bars coming from other parts of the tent, the monkey existed calmly in his miniscule space, patiently waiting for the end of the day when he’d be taken back to wherever they came from, warm and fed (I hope) before setting out for wherever was next.
                A moment later he sat up and reached outside the cage for a piece of straw, which he raised to his mouth and chewed a couple of times, then dropped it to the ground. With his expression unchanged he hopped up and down a few times, grabbing the bars and spinning himself around a bit in an effort to amuse himself.
                From the cage at the end of the line a domesticated cat looked on in complete stillness as though it were stationed on a living room windowsill looking out on the senseless commotion of the world outside. I’m not sure what the owners felt they were lacking to round out their collection of caged wildlife with a housecat. Goodness knows asking them would bring about no understanding. Not that I’d know who to ask, anyway. The whole exhibit seemed to be devoid of caretakers, of anyone to look upon with a disapproving glare.
                We made our way through mud puddles to the opposite row of tents, looking for a place to conquer our appetites. The line of open-air restaurants stretched out for a couple hundred meters, presenting us with no shortage of options. We briefly surveyed the whole length of it before deciding to return to the most enticing option we’d passed, which presented an animal in a much more palatable form than any we’d seen that day: a pig roasting on a spit in front of the tent. A labored perusal of their hanging menu suggested we could get a platter of roast pork for 25,000 won. We asked for that and sat down at a table, finally out of the rain.
                In my rush to get to the bus that morning I’d failed to eat anything. It was around 11 when we sat down to eat, around the time I’m finally getting out of bed on many mornings. Thus, while I wasn’t uncomfortably hungry, I eagerly scooped up some of the kimchi and other panjan once it was placed on the table. Even with the chilling effect of our ceasing to move around, having a dry place to sit out of the wind with a bit of kimchi in my stomach provided some sense of warmth.
                This cold! Shouldn’t it be warm here by now? It seemed like it was going to stay nice after the good weather we had during the week. Of course on the weekend it would decide to create a disturbance.
                I began to notice the disproportionate number of foreigners in the clumps of passers-by contemplating the array of lunch options. This wasn’t surprising; there were likely many foreigner-oriented groups like ours that had planned outings to the festival for that day. Since we’d already transferred funds to book seats on the bus we were much less likely to be dissuaded by the less-than-ideal conditions than Korean families who may have been considering a drive out to Nonsan to check out the festival. For most of them there’d be next year, anyway. It tends to be easy to spot foreigners in Korea, and several more groups of them sat down at tables near ours while we waited, perhaps having been drawn in by the presence of other foreigners and, of course, the pig on a spit. To ourselves, we commended the proprietor for her keen advertising.
                How nice it will be when it finally warms up for good. I’d like to try to visit Haeundae at some point in the small window I imagine exists between the first warm weekends and the rush of immense crowds that will pour over the sand when beach season begins. Doing so may cause me to miss out on the real spirit of Haeundae, however. But this cold! The warmth seems a remote dream that comes more slowly the more we ache for it.
                The pork was served over fresh onions and garlic on an iron skillet, heated so that we could hear that appetizing hiss and sizzle as we stirred up the contents, pushing the pork down against the bottom to heat it up for optimal enjoyment.
               I swear the temperature’s dropped since we sat down. It was cool this morning, but it’s getting downright cold now. I thought we were done with this. This should have been done weeks ago. What happened to global warming?
                The proprietor filled another platter with pork for another table of foreigners. Another worker was stripping meet from the mostly-emptied animal with gloved hands, her hair wrapped in a bandana and her mouth and nose covered by a surgical mask. Behind her sat two children, one a teenager and the other younger than ten, both visibly bored and impatient. The older one fidgeted on a phone while the other glanced frantically about with a frown. I assumed all the people working the food tent were family, and the kids had to come along for a cold day watching the adults run the business.
                As much as some of the kids I teach can drive me up a wall at times, you can’t help but develop some sympathy for them. Kids spend a lot of time in school and academy here, and I remember very clearly the strong desire to please and impress parents and teachers. For many of these kids, that task involves a huge time commitment, much greater than it ever did for me. So I did feel bad for these kids, sitting under a tent in the rain and cold –on a Saturday – and maybe Sunday as well, before going back to their routine of regular school in the morning and afternoon, and academy for a couple hours in the evening, and a few hours for homework. There are many challenging moments for me in teaching, but whenever I stop doing it I’ll miss those occasions when I know the kids are learning something, and they know it too, and smile.
                On the other side of the entrance another worker - an aunt, perhaps - had begun frying up some pajeon. On display next to her were some deep fried goodies we thought might be squid, so we ordered a plate. Once it reached our table we saw that it might actually be deep-fried ginger root. I grabbed one a took a bite, confirming this suspicion, to the chagrin of the lot of us. We worked on it for a while in order not to seem rude. Really, it wasn’t too bad, though it was not nearly as delicious as fried squid would have been. Still, it helps to have an affinity for fried ginger to work through such a large amount of it in the absence of considerable hunger, and we were already quite sated from the pork and the vegetable side dishes. That’s when the pajeon arrived.
                Pajeon is the first Korean food I remember trying. My neighbor made some using vegetables from her garden. Alexander ate it enthusiastically, having much more knowledge at the time of Korean cuisine than I did. Actually, at that time I knew nothing about Korean food, so I tried a bit with no real expectations, though I did find the idea of a vegetable pancake exotic. I loved it, and I try not to go too long over here without enjoying some variety of pajeon.
                In fact, I’ve been indulging even more frequently in the past couple of months in anticipation of the relative scarcity of Korean food that will confront me when I return to the states. But the plentitude of our meal at the food tent had pushed beyond our limits with a couple of ginger roots and a third of a pajeon left on the table. I continued to pick at the pajeon, breaking off sections of it with my chopsticks and lifting them to my mouth out of nostalgia and a desire to delay the hunger I’d begin to feel in a few hours, perhaps out of habit.
                I hate to harp on the cold. I’ve often heard others point out that the weather makes for dull conversation. But it’s there, and we can all feel it, and if it makes us uncomfortable or annoyed, isn’t it natural to commiserate with each other over that? Particularly since this cold seems so stubbornly persistent, so determined to get us to talk about it, to shiver in its wake, whereas if it had shown up in the dead of winter we’d have shrugged it off.
                One of the adults must have given the younger girl some money, because when I looked back up toward the spit she was standing in front of it with a grin on her face, presumably brought about by the cookie-like snack in her hands. A group of the workers went to the back of the tent. A few minutes later, the lumbered through the aisle alongside our table, hauling between the four of them a pig that must have been five feet long, wrapped loosely in a clear plastic bag. I was tickled to witness this, accepting the spectacle as an enhancement of the dining experience. I was also quite glad it was occurring after we’d finished eating, sa what I watched wasn’t exactly appetizing.
                They roughly lowered the carcass onto the surface of a table diagonally across from ours. Two of them lifted one end of the pig high enough for the others to slip off the plastic bag, so we could see the deep slit across the entire length of the animal’s underside, through which the organs had been removed. The first pig was little more than a well-cooked spine and ribcage now, so this new specimen was being prepared to draw in and feed more customers as the lunchtime rush continued. I wondered how many more they had waiting out of sight behind the tent to replace this one once it too had served its purpose. I imagined a truck bed covered with decapitated pig carcasses waiting to be paraded out to command the attention of the busloads of foreigners wandering by.
Pig being readied for the spit; pajeon in the foreground

                The four adults struggled to maintain solid grips as they hoisted up the pig and hauled it to the second spit. Three of them supported the weight as they lowered it, blocking the view of those passing by while they prepared the display. After a few moments, the pig was in place and spinning, and we rose to pay and return to the cold and rain.
                The level of activity had risen dramatically during our two-hour lunch. While we had grown colder, the festival had marched on. Plush strawberry mascots trudged through the muck with ecstatic smiles stitched onto their faces. Families crowded under the tarp overhangs sheltering strawberry rice cake vendors. Couples queued up to purchase pairs of fresh berries skewered and dipped in melted chocolate with a rainbow of sprinkles drizzled on top, one or the other holding two in his or her hand while turning around to pass off half of the sweet, juicy burden. Parents edged up beside their children as the little ones leaned heavily over large rounded pots, their gloved hands mashing masses of the blood red berries into jam, soaking up the warmth of the gooey pulp engulfing their fingers.
                With about an hour to kill before the departure of our bus for the strawberry fields, we came upon the tent of a couple of caricature artists. On display were some interpretations of Korean celebrities. Sarah suggested we sit for a caricature of our group, and we quickly agreed. It seemed a good way to pass the time out of the rain while we waited for the greatly-anticipated strawberry picking.
                The artist welcomed us when he had finished drawing a trio ahead of us, and we relaxed into the four chairs facing the back of his easel. I began to unzip my coat, the one I’d worn for our ski trip, the same one I’d bought last year to wear on the Mt. Washington hike, the one that had gotten me through the winter here and continued to ward off some of the cold still confronting me. I zipped it back up to the neck, figuring he wouldn’t draw our clothing anyway, and later realizing that if he did, I would want to be drawn in it anyway.
                I tried not to move too much when the artist signaled to me that he was beginning my caricature. He spoke a few words in Korean and studied me briefly but seriously. I bounced my legs up and down on my toes to generate some heat. Although I tried to keep my eyes open and facing in his general direction, I wasn’t comfortable looking at him for however long it might take, which wasn’t clear to me. He seemed hard at work and deep in concentration, his gaze moving carefully from me to his canvas, his pen or brush moving rapidly and smoothly. It was interesting to watch for a bit, but I almost felt as though I might disturb him if I seemed to be making eye contact, so my focus drifted across the activity outside the tent.
                Another Korean tour leader with an excellent American accent shepherded his foreigners around the grass between the rows of tents, taking pictures with some in front of a strawberry sculpture. Some schoolkids with backpacks, perhaps enjoying the outdoors after Saturday academy classes, stared at us in curiosity while walking by. The strawberry mascots approached the tent next to the artists’, pulling off their oversized heads as they entered, eager to be rid of them at the end of their shift.
                A young couple with a young child maybe three or four years old and a baby came up to the side of our artist, watching him work. The familiar beat of “Gangnam Style” found its way into the tent from the loudspeakers in the parking lot, introducing an adorably muted version of the horse dance from the couple’s older child, who bounced slightly up and down as though it were an involuntary reaction she was either fighting to suppress or struggling to develop. She and her father sat for the neighboring artist a few minutes later while the mother and baby watched. We sat mostly in stillness and silence, waiting patiently to discover what it was he and the more curious of the passers-by found notable, or at least noticeable, about us. Here's the result:
I think we look warm
We scurried to get to the bus at the scheduled meeting time once the caricature was complete, and I sank into my seat with a full stomach and a deep appreciation of the heater. At the strawberry farm about half an hour later we went into a greenhouse and had half an hour to eat berries straight from the vines and fill up a small container to take home with us. They were delicious and provided a sweet end to a refreshing day away from the city.



Inside the greenhouse

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Mountains, Part III: Mt. Washington

After graduating high school, I was fortunate enough to be able to fly to Europe to join my older brother Alexander for three weeks of travel in Italy, Norway, and Germany. He was on his way home from a year in Russia, and we met in Frankfurt to start a journey that took us to Venice, Torino, and Oslo, a few days of round-the-clock sunlight on the Lofoten Islands in the Arctic, and a short stay in Frankfurt during the 2006 World Cup before returning to the states. Other than a couple of brief but pleasant ventures into Canada, that was my first international travel. Except for a couple of hours in New Brunswick after my freshman year of college, I didn't leave the states again until I stepped off the plane in Seoul seven months ago.

Alexander moved away to attend IMSA when he was a sophomore in high school. He studied abroad for a year in Russia during college, and worked for a year in Russia after graduating college. I admired and was astounded by his ability to travel to and adapt to living in far-flung places. His ability to learn a language that required a different alphabet impressed me. While I was fascinated by his interest in exploring and diving into foreign environments, I didn't feel a desire to do that myself. Moving to away for college was far enough for me.

My parents accompanied me on the flight to Boston to be with me as I moved into my dorm and got started in my freshman year of college. I was excited and terrified, thrilled by the sense of endless possibilities and trembling under the weight of imagined expectations. It was a comfort to me to see Alexander, who came up from Maryland to meet us. If he could do what he'd done, surely I could manage this. The three weeks in Europe had given me some confidence in my ability to navigate new places (though I would have been lost without him over there).

I would never have imagined then that two years later I would be helping Alexander move into his apartment for his first year as a graduate student at Harvard just as I was beginning my junior year there. It was an absolute thrill for me when he decided to go there. I had tried not to show too much bias when he was making his decision in order not to make him feel pressure to join me there, but I had hoped all along he would choose it. Having my brother live just down the street from me there for my last two years was a true blessing. I enjoyed my first two years there as well, but it brought me so much joy to be able to see my brother there. Our departments were located in the same building so we often ran into each other on campus. Many evenings I would walk over to his apartment and have dinner with him and talk over a tv show or just study there, just to be in the same space as my brother, to have family so far from home. 

Even now I'm smiling thinking of how lucky I was to have him there. When people ask me if I miss college I usually give a qualified answer. I'm very glad to have had the opportunity to go there. I enjoyed it while I was there. It truly was thrilling. However, I was very happy to graduate from college. There are many things I miss about college, but what I've missed most about it is sharing Harvard with him. Sometimes it seems that I left college without taking very much of it with me. Without him there I would have come away with much less.

It'd been nearly 18 months since I'd been on campus when I finally made plans to return and visit my brother last February. I regret not having spent more time with him during college. I wish now I'd taken more time for hot chocolates at Burdick or yogurts at Berryline. I always enjoyed the times we did do that, and the Thanksgiving and Easter dinners we had together, feeling almost like we were home. I also wish I'd taken advantage of one of the numerous chances I had to visit him during one of his stays in Europe to study language during the summers. I'd become, as strange as it seems to me now, a homebody. Of course, coming from a home and family as wonderful as mine that's understandable. But getting away from it is an important part of appreciating it.

Thus, I was excited to get back to Cambridge and spend some more time with Alexander despite my previously discussed uncertainty about how I'd feel on campus since graduating. Since he was my favorite part about being at Harvard before I left, he would probably be a good way to be reintroduced to it. And like I wrote before, my visit went even better than I had hoped. Then it was time to head to New Hampshire for a trek that I hoped could make up for some of the opportunities I missed to visit Alexander abroad. If I wasn't going to bond with him in Croatia in June, maybe we could bond on Mt. Washington in February. However, it was probably going to be much harder to hear.

I'd seen the mountain a couple of times before. The first time that I recall was on one of my family's road trips when I was in middle school that bucked the trend by heading east rather than to the Rockies (often including a stop at the Eisenhower home in Abilene, KS). In the fall of my sophomore year of college my dad and Alexander came up to visit, and we took a couple of days to drive north into New Hampshire to see the foliage and get some maple syrup. That trip included a stop near the base of Mt. Washington to snap a couple of photos.

Although I went through a phase of fascination with mountaineering in middle school after reading Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and falling in love with the IMAX film "Everest" (which I saw for the first time on a modest television set after receiving the VHS as a Christmas gift, but was lucky enough to get my parents to take me to see on the Omnimax screen at the St. Louis Science Center when it returned there a few years later), seeing Mt. Washington had never prompted in me a desire to climb it. It seemed like a mountain I might drive up sometime if I ever ended up there in a car with a group that was feeling like forking over the fee, but even that didn't really interest me. After seeing the Rockies so often anything in the Appalachians seemed to me rather modest. I fantasized about someday scaling Himalayan peaks and arrogantly (and ignorantly) wrote anything less as thinking small.

Of course, by the time Alexander and I rented a car and drove out of Boston last February, my view of Mt. Washington had changed dramatically. It was similar to the feeling I get the day before a marathon; I was eager to get into the excitement but also somewhat dreading the discomfort and exhaustion that would accompany it. Also, with a marathon, I know that if things get too bad I can stop running and get help from any of the thousands of spectators and volunteers that line the course. If things get too bad on Mt. Washington, help is much more difficult to come by. In all likelihood, I realized, everything would go swimmingly, but in the face of a new and challenging experience I do tend to consider nightmare scenarios.

Several hours later we arrived at our hotel in Gorham, NH and unloaded our bags and the provisions we'd bought along the way and checked in, coming to the realization as the desk attendant handed us an actual, physical key (the kind you turn) that this was the same hotel where we'd stayed a night that first time we drove past Mt. Washington on the family road trip all those years ago. After checking in we had dinner at the nearly-empty restaurant next door and quickly returned to the hotel. We needed to have everything prepared for an early-morning departure. I planned out the many layers I intended to wear to guard against the cold, packed our dried fruit and evenly divided submarine sandwich into zipper bags and chose which pocket would make them most easily accessible. We loaded our packs with what we thought we might need and plenty of bottles of water and some sports drinks. My experience on the AT a few months prior had made me very nervous about running low on water, so after I had everything packed that I thought I would need I stuffed in as many bottles of water as I could on top of what I already had.

Of course, I had trouble sleeping that night, despite (or perhaps because of) my intention to get lots of rest with the full day ahead. That tends to also happen before marathons and Christmas mornings. Our wake-up time rolled around quickly and after putting on my base layer, sweatpants and t-shirt, ski-pants and long-sleeved running shirt, fleece sweatshirt, ski coat, and two pairs of socks under my snow boots, we checked out and drove to the meeting point for our hiking group.

It was an icy morning. After parking and grabbing our packs from the trunk of the rental car we walked toward the building where we would meet our guides and get our rental gear. There were six other hikers in our group, along with our two guides, for a total of ten in our party. We scrambled to make sure our packs were ready to go, affixing the small shovels we had been issued to them and finding space for the crampons that we would need to use later in the hike. We also strapped on climbing harnesses, which I hadn't expected.

Once everyone was properly packed we left the building and started up the trail. At first, our guides advised us not to wear our coats. It was cold out, but the hiking at the base would keep us warm, and with too much clothing we would get sweaty and be in bad shape to get chilled when we reached the colder higher stretches of the trail. Indeed, within fifteen minutes from the start of our hike the temperature felt nearly comfortable. Once in a while we would stop for a snack break to make sure we stayed properly fueled, and anytime we rested we put on our coats to keep from getting too cold. Even with the coats, after a few minutes of not moving the cold would get to me so I was happy to start moving again.

After about an hour and a half we stopped for a longer break to put crampons on over our boots. The trail from there would get much icier, and the crampons would help us keep our footing. This break took longer, so that I was shivering and had some trouble getting the crampons on, since the flexibility of my fingers faded quickly as the cold took over. But, thanks to my North Face Baltoro boots, bought on clearance at REI in Brentwood, MO, my feet were still warm! Also helping were the two pairs of socks I was wearing, one wool and one wool-like synthetic. (When I had bought the boots at REI the month before, I heard one of the cashiers tell the customer checking out before me that she was about to move to Korea to teach English. I asked her about it and she told me she was leaving in a few weeks to work in Seoul. I hope her experience turned out as well for her as mine has been for me thus far.)

While the hiking was tiring, the beauty of the trail more than made up for it. The contrast between the heat and thoroughly summertime Smokies and the snow-covered slopes of this hike really struck me as a great point to mention in the essay I would inevitably someday write about the two hiking experiences.

Nah, I'm only kidding. After we all had on our crampons and continued on the trail I was mostly nervous wondering to what extent we were actually going to need these crampons and how much use we were going to get out of climbing harnesses. It didn't take long to find out, as the trail rapidly steepened until we hit a nearly vertical stretch that provided two options: use the fixed rope and switchbacks on the slightly less-vertical portion to the left, or tie up to the rope our guides were about to fix and use your crampons and pick to climb up the tiered frozen waterfall to the right. We would all go to the right. This was my first attempt at climbing on ice, and it turned out to be fun and a bit terrifying, since I ended up depending quite a bit on that rope to get myself to the top. It wasn't a long climb, maybe ten to fifteen meters, but that didn't stop me from imagining how much it might hurt if that rope didn't hold.

After getting up that stretch we made one more stop among the evergreen trees lining the trail and were encouraged to eat our lunch. Alexander and I broke out our halves of the submarine sandwich and quickly devoured them. I hadn't eaten very much during the previous breaks, though I tried to have a bit at each one, knowing I would need the energy later on. We continued about ten minutes later, and within a few hundred meters the journey changed drastically. Quite abruptly we were no longer surrounded by evergreens, but instead by bare slopes of rock and ice. The wind is unhindered above the treeline, and within a few minutes I was feeling much colder.

Much of that hike is a blur in my memory now, especially after we cleared the treeline. I became in a way locked in, with my goggles on and my focus on taking step after step and keeping my balance against the strong winds, which still managed at times to push me about so that I was often leaning heavily on my pick. We made a few more stops at some rocky outcrops that provided a tiny bit of space to get out of the wind. At one of these I removed my gloves to get at some of the snacks I had zipped up in a pocket, and this turned out to be a mistake. By the time I got the food open and put my hand back in the glove it was almost numb with the cold. I transferred a heat pack into the glove to try to speed up the warming process, but it still took what seemed like ten to fifteen minutes to get full flexibility back, and I spent much of that time worrying about frostbite.

Here are some pictures taken from the bunch of rocks where we got out of the wind for a break. There was barely enough space for the ten of us to take shelter, but it provided a nice spot to actually look out and take in the view, something I didn't do much of while trudging up the trail. And now that I look at these pictures, I remember another reason my hand got so cold- I kept it outside the glove not only to get some food but also to take a few pictures. It looks very peaceful here, actually, with the ski slopes visible on that other mountain.



It's a good thing we hydrated well during this break because the colder temperatures on the upper slopes caused a lot of the water and Gatorade we'd packed to start freezing.

The nearer we got to the top, the stronger the winds seemed to get, and eventually it became very difficult to see as the snow was being picked up and blown around us. Reaching the summit came as a bit of a surprise because I couldn't see far enough ahead of us to be able to tell where it was until we were very near the top and saw the weather station. Trying to stay steady in the wind, we regrouped and sat down for a breather in a sort of sheltered corridor on the side of the station, sitting down and eating and drinking a bit more to refuel for the upcoming descent. It was here that I realized how much of my water was frozen and placed a few heat packs next to the bottles in an attempt to thaw some of it out, or at least prevent more of it from freezing.

During the break Alexander and I ventured outside the corridor to snap a few pictures of ourselves at the weather station. He was aware enough to get a good view of the building next to me so you can see the thick layer of ice forming on its roof. I was just trying to take his picture as quickly as possible in order to avoid having my hand freeze up again.



After that, our guides gathered everyone together for a short walk to the actual summit of the mountain a few meters away, on the other side of the weather station. We put back on our goggles, gloves, and hats, and stepped back out into the wind, which was still periodically gusting strong enough to nearly knock me down. In the first picture you can see me leaning on the pole on the far right. I really felt as though I were being pushed over at that moment. In the second picture the wind slowed enough that I was able to quickly raise my arms up to pose in a guardedly triumphant gesture for the camera before quickly bringing them back down to avoid ending up flat on the ice.


When I wrote my previous post I intended to describe my reaching the summit of Mt. Washington as a moment of great clarity, when I was able to gaze out at the possibilities of the future ahead of me. I even set it up with that line about Korea being a foggy image in the distance that may or may not actually come into being, and how Mt. Washington was this huge obstacle right in front of me, the idea being that once I surmounted that obstacle I could clearly see what I was capable of in the future. In reality, however, I couldn't see anything on the top of Mt. Washington. The wind was gusting, blowing snow and ice in our faces. My goggles had fogged up, and taking them off and rubbing the lenses clear wasn't an option because the fog quickly froze with the frigid windchill. On the top of Mt. Washington I was freezing cold and anxious to get back down that mountain, if I could do so without falling and breaking some limb, which would not be easy, especially given how difficult it was for me to see. I would have plenty of time to think about my future later, after I'd assured I would have one.


The weather seemed to be worsening when we started our descent, and I was feeling quite nervous as we started back down the trail. With the visibility issues every step felt like an adventure I was undergoing now out of necessity, and the fatigue in my legs decreased my stability even further. Also, I calculated we would run short on daylight before we could get down the mountain completely. Our guides I'm sure had realized this well before me, which is probably why we kept what seemed like a somewhat hurried pace on the descent, which made my increasing clumsiness feel even more hazardous. Eventually, though, I found a rhythm, and the blowing snow cleared up enough that I could look out at some of the gorgeous views of the valleys and mountains all around us from time to time.

We made fewer stops on the way down, since the hiking was taking less energy and since we were in a bit of a rush. Eventually we got back below the treeline and started warming up again. When we returned to the frozen waterfall, Alexander and I were the first to volunteer to scale down it. I can't remember if these pictures are from before or after the waterfall, but either way they are from very near it and give an idea of how steep that section of the trail was.







I've only done this sort of climbing one other time, at an indoor rock wall in Vermont while in college. It's something I may try to do more of. That feeling of leaning back far enough that I realize I'm depending on that rope to hold me up was instantly recognizable from that day of climbing five years before, and it was at once terrifying and thrilling, which I suppose is the point.



We took these pictures while waiting for the rest of the group to scale down the frozen waterfall, and they were the last ones we took. It started to get dark not long after that. We kept hiking rather briskly, and the last forty-five minutes or so of the descent was done in the dark. Of course, our guides had made sure we carried headlamps in case of this, and given how long it takes to get a group of ten hikers, some of them as inexperienced as I am, up and down Mt. Washington, it wasn't unexpected. The part of the trail we hiked in the dark was pretty flat and had switchbacks so it wasn't too steep. I think it may actually be used as some sort of road at some times. It was easy enough hiking that we felt comfortable chatting with some of our fellow hikers.

The lights of the lodge where we'd begun the day beckoned warmly through the tree branches just as I continued to wonder just how much more of this downhill hiking my legs could take. Walking downhill is surprisingly uncomfortable after awhile, especially following so much walking uphill, which is tiresome without really being painful. We went inside and I gladly took off my pack and harness to return to the guides along with the other gear we'd rented. I changed into some fresh socks and longed to get back to Cambridge for a hot shower and fresh clothes. We troubled our guides for a picture and hoisted up our packs for one more short trek to the rental car, where we dumped them into the back seat and climbed in for the drive back.
At the lodge with our guides after the hike

Along the way we called home to let our parents know we were safely down. I think Dad had kept their nerves a bit on edge by checking weather updates for the summit, including wind speeds. The Mt. Washington Observatory recorded the average wind speed that day, Presidents' Day, February 20, 2012, at 47mph with a high temperature of 6°F. Now the task would be for Alexander to fight the fatigue to complete the several hours of driving ahead of us.

We stopped for a break in Portsmouth, NH, around 10pm. It was quiet in the city at that time, and we walked around the old seaport for a bit, stretching out our legs and taking in the atmosphere. Although I was very tired and anxious to get some sleep, I actually enjoyed the impromptu interlude. It's a place I'd like to see again during the day some time. It seemed like it could have a charm to it similar to Salem and Gloucester, cities I was able to visit during my time in college and that bring out my interest in American maritime culture. That stop added a welcome balance to the nature-heavy day we'd had to that point.

We arrived back in Cambridge late that night and went quickly to bed, thoroughly exhausted. The next day was the last full day of my trip. I had lunch in my old house dining hall with my former adviser and discussed some ideas for my future and enjoyed a dinner that night with my brother at the seafood restaurant we like to splurge on for a nice dinner when someone makes the trip up to visit. The food was delicious as always, though I was feeling a bit sad knowing that I'd be leaving  the next day and wouldn't get to spend that much time with Alexander for quite a while after I left.

The next day he had some school obligations in the morning, so I slept in and went up to campus to meet him early in the afternoon. I went to his office (in one of my favorite buildings on campus, where I took a writing class and a Spanish class) and he gave me a new biography of Charles Dickens as a gift. All of my family has been very supportive of my dreams of writing fiction, and I appreciated his thoughtful gesture. He helped me carry my luggage to the subway stop via the Yard, where we stopped for one last photo together before I caught the T out to Logan for my flight home.

While I was sorry to say goodbye to Alexander, the trip had turned out much better than I had hoped. Within a couple days of arriving back in St. Louis I resumed substitute teaching, and within a few weeks I submitted a request for a criminal record check, my first step toward securing a job as an English teacher in Korea.