Chez Gabrielle, May 28th

To recuperrate from the long and exhausting Jiri-san hike, our dear leader chose as our next hiking destination a small mountain in the Suwon area, Gangkyosan. An even greater reason to go there was to visit our member Gabrielle who teaches at the Suwon University and lives in a hotel/palace. She's been bragging about it for a long time, so we were dying to see for ourselves this paradise on earth.
Oh, Suwon is just too far away. I spent more than an hour on the subway,going through about 100 pages of my book and witnessing an amazing transformation. A woman sitting across fromme who entered the subway car looking like a Plain Jane turned into a 'raving' albeit somewhat too made up beauty. For more than an hour she was applying make up, from a thick shield of foundation to 10 coats of mascara, oblivious of the people around her (and the people seemed rather indifferent to her artistics efforts, too).

A dozen gray hairs later, I was finally at Suwon station and the first friendly face that I saw was Min-woo's. I could actually hear my heart plonking all the way down to my heels at the sight of his smiling face that's just getting more and more beautiful each time I see him. One deep deep breath and my poor disattached vital organ is vacuumed back up in its proper place - my reasonable cool chest. Soon, other hikers started arriving, including CD who wore his purple face as a testament to yet another boozing night. Clare was very late and very very upset with CD for giving her wrong directions.
Gangkyosan proved to be a molehill of a mountain so much so that some 'hikers' wore high heels. The hike was pleasant enough, the mountain resembling Chonggaesan with its green lush slopes and shaded trails. Two new members joined us, a very nice Canadian, Giselle, and also a very nice Aussie, Margaret. The latter's claim to fame is that she's in possession of the most wonderful white hat that I've been lusting after ever since I saw it on top of her head and the fact that she's the youngest grandmother I've ever seen (except perhaps my own father's sister who was a grandma at 37 by the way of dropping high-school, marrying young and soon after producing a daughter who would grow up to repeat her mom's mistake).
The hike was followed by a dinner and ddju on a natural patio of a restaurant right at the foot of the mountain. For the first time we tried the "pumpkin dong-dong ju" and really liked it.

After dinner, CD, Jee-hye, Young-rock, Sooyoung, Penny and I went to Gabe's place, the rest of our party having other things to do. Gabe's place proved to be all that she promised it'd be: a hotel overlooking a golf course and a lake. The lobby shined in all its marbled- fat pillared and crystall chandeliered glory. CD and the rest of Koreans left within an hour. Penny and I stayed behind and soon were moved to the party next door. It was a rather happening event complete with a barbecue on the balcony, potato salad, pretzels, beer, beer, more beer, and some pungent cigarillos smoked up by some of the teachers.

We mingled with an interesting population of English teachers from various English-speaking countries. Memorable mentions go to a burly American guy at the barbecue whose sausages bulged over the heat in the same way his biceps did under his pink, sunburned skin; a Canadian guy with a goatee and a floral shirt, interesting because I figured that he had to be the ex-squeeze of a friend of mine; a beautiful brown South African woman (transplanted to Australia) of Indian origin who seems to think that her role in life is to remind everybody of the South African racist past (when I asked her where she was from she said:"From Brown Town, like any other non-white person"); an Aussie guy Wade who made a lot of tired jokes about me eating sausages; a loud (token) Korean woman who acted wildly in an effort,perhaps, to break the stereotype about a meek and mild Asian woman; and my personal favourite, a Brittish guy called Robert, dressed in (I kid you not) baggy crumpled shorts of unidentifiable colour, a Hawaii shirt with big hibiscus flowers and lizards and a tweed jacket. I liked him 'cuase his looks and his talk were outrageously funny.
Since we were having fun, Penny and I decided to forego our last chance to catch the last subway and cab it later. The taxi ride proved to be hellishly expensive. I've never seen the taximeter going so fast. Every 5 seconds or so the ride cost would go up for additional 400 or 500 won.
We had a good time, though, so no regrets - we were reassured that Gabe does indeed live in a great marble palace just like the Princess of her stature should.