Hiking Dobongsan

One of Korea's best kept secrets is that roughly 70% of the peninsula is mountains. They don't even begin to approach the heights of most of the mountains in the Rockies, and I'm pretty sure there isn't even a peak in the country higher than some of the ones in the Appalachians, but the mountains in Korea are steep, picturesque, and about the only thing in this tiny country that hasn't been overpolluted. Add to that the fact that there are three or four really nice mountains for hiking that extend from the surrounding areas into the city limits of Seoul, and it's one of the few places in the world where you can spend a Saturday enjoying pristine nature ( minus the wildlife they killed off), run home for a quick shower and shave, and be in town right around the time things start to pick up.

This Saturday I headed to Dobongsan, my favorite hiking spot around Seoul. I got up bright and early for a breakfast thing in town, unaware that one of the guys I was meeting was going to pay for everyone else's meal. That seems unimportant, but is relevant to the end of the story.

After the breakfast I spent an hour or so getting out of town and away from the main entrance to the mountain, the one that leads you to what I like to call the boring, overcrowded, monotonous, easy way up. As always, I went off the beaten path to a steeper path that forces you to go through three or four distinct types of terrain ( more if you take side paths that you're not supposed to ) and gives you an extra hour of breathtaking views along the ridgeline. If you look at one of the pics I uploaded, you can even see the smog covering the city like a warm blanket.

A few minutes from the peak I saw the same crazy old guy that always sells cheap rice wine in the same spot. I usually ignore him, but something almost instinctual was triggered this time, so I asked to buy a bottle. One of the old Korean guys crowded around informed me, in English, that this was the one day of the year when he had some crazy shamanistic festival to pray for the coming year. This makes since, except that the Korean ( who am I kidding, they just stole the calendar from China ) lunar new year was a month ago. Whatever, if it gets me free cheap booze, who am I to argue?

After profusely insisting that I couldn't take part in the ceremony for religious reasons and repeatedly being told the crazy old guy doesn't care and is just giving it to any random passersby who stops to hang out with him for five seconds, I downed a couple of paper cups of the stuff.

On the way down I ran into Dave and Savannah, the engaged couple from Illinois, hiked with them briefly, then excused myself from the third wheel position. A bit later some guy started talking to me in English. I wasn't really interested in talking to the guy, but more than once in the past the exact same thing has ended up with me getting a free dinner and drinks, so I slowed my pace and talked with him for awhile. But alas, he broke my heart and left me feeling like some cheap slut when I realized he was talking to me for some free English practice but unwilling to pay this whore's price. My hopes and dreams dashed and feeling destitute ( except for the cash in my pocket that could've bought dinner and drinks for three ), I continued my dreary march homeward. As cruel fate would have it, I wasn't even allowed a proper chance to mourn this loss.

Somewhere between the trail and the subway station, I ran into the same guy who had translated between me and the crazy guy who was praying to a pig's head earlier. He noticed me before I noticed him. I wasn't really in the mood for conversation, but before I got the chance to tell him this he was rude enough to ask me to have dinner with him and the other old people he was with. I'm not much of a fan of eating with old Korean dudes, but I didn't have the heart to turn down a free meal. The restaurant was another one of the hundred at the bottom serving traditional Korean meals and rice wine, but this one was special. No, it didn't serve the filtered, brown, sweet, high class stuff in plastic pots like most of the restaurants. This place specialized in the milky-white, barely-drinkable green bottle convenience store stuff, apparently the only one the crazy old guy from on top of the mountain would let any of the rest drink.

It was really an odd mix. A few of the men spoke English really well, the rest couldn't speak a word, all these old Koreans who seemed to be there out of pity for the nice, crazy old guy that sells cheap rice wine on top of the mountain, and the one foreign guy who can't speak any of the language but was more than happy with the free dinner. We had a few different main dishes, ranging from an awesome spicy chicken soup to pah juns ( usually translated as Korean pancakes, but pizza would be much more accurate ), we raised plastic bowls of rice wine in cheers every five seconds, and for a season a good time was had by all. Right around the time when I was finally getting full and sailing that narrow straight between control and uncontrollable drunkenness, one of the guys that spoke English informed me that it might be a good idea for me to leave ASAP. Apparently the crazy old guy that sells rice wine on top of the mountain was drunk enough that noone was quite sure what he was about to do, and the rest didn't want him starting a fight with the one foreigner for no reason ( as Koreans are often want to do ). Feeling my stomach full enough that I need not want, and knowing that I was just sober enough to still refuse a drink when it was offered, I shook hands and thanked them all.

All too appropriately, I inadvertently nailed down a day's worth of free food and drink at the expense of people I hardly know the day before I discovered Tortilla Flat, a book about a bunch of lazy drunks that do everything short of murder so they can keep drinking cheap wine all night and sleeping all day without having to get jobs.