The Inwangsan Hike, Oct. 5th

When on Tuesday afternoons I manage to conquer the procrastinator in me and dilligently prepare Thursday and Friday lessons, I am rewarded by a wonderful Wednesday, free to do whatever I like to do.
This past Wednesday was a day like that, and what a treat it was.
For quite some time I haven't been feeling right. I've been in a constant 'waiting' gear: when working I wait for vacation; when on vacation I wait for work; when fat I wait to get thinner; when unfit wait to get fitter. Weeks, months, even years pass by in this unfortunate gear and I don't know how to get unstuck from there and shift into the 'drive, go n get em" mode. I feel like I live in an isolated balloon in which I am rolling down the path of life bumping on ocassion an interesting person or two but then keep rolling on, untouched and unmoved. I keep myself busy just to forget how truly 'idle' I am. When I am at home, I find something that needs cleaning or organizing, or I decide that I absolutely need to get some cinnammon which, of course means, a shopping trip - again a busy bee. One of the reasons I like hiking and walking so much must be that I have a sense of purpose, a goal to achieve - go up the mountain, reach the peak and come home by a certain hour.
On Wednesday I woke up at 8:00 and while still in bed promised to myself that I'd take it easy, enjoy a long lazy morning coffee. I did two hours of caffeine infused play with Chinese characters and reading about 50 pages of a very nice book that tells all about the history of love (what you don't have you can at least read about, right?).

My hiking gear was waiting for me, neatly folded on the chair next to me. Also, my 'diet' lunch of tuna fish salad and sliced melon for dessert was cooling in the fridge. At about 11:00 I set off on my adventure - hiking it alone in Inwangsan.
I got off the subway at Gwanghwamun and walked to Sajik Park. By the time I got there, it was lunch time, and the park was filled with ajoshis enjoying their post-lunch talks and cigarettes. I spotted two larger-than-life statues and learned only later by a google search whose likeness they are: some famous Cheoson Dynasty philosopher Yulgok and his mother, both looking very smart and very Korean in their attire if not in their facial features. With big eyes and well-defined noses they don't truly represent a typical Koran look. On a higher level in the park I came across Tangun's shrine. How kitchy! He's painted in bright colours and seated amidst impossibly bright artifical roses of sharon; in front of him there's a low table with shiny candle holders and plates. The sign leading up to the shrine reads something like: "whatever your religion, go and bow to Tangun." If he looked a bit more 'devine' I would have, but I couldn't bow to this badly turned-out mannequin.
Leaving Tangun to his eternal punishment of bright colours and fake flowers I continued up to Inwangsan. The closer I got to the mountain the more soldiers and civil guards I met. One of them was a flirty guy who asked me in Korean and Englihs if I was American. The others were frindly shy young guys who must have recognized the hiking royaly when they saw one as they only said to me:" Inwangsan? Chick-chin" (chick- chin has nothing to do with either chicks or chins, it's a Korean word for "go straight.") After a few chick-chins I had to make one "oronchock' (turn right), and as soon as I did, I was on a quite long stairway leading all the way up to the ridge. I climbed and climbed and climbed until my hip joints were ground to fine powder - at least that's what it felt like. I am turning into an ajumma with hip problems, aigoooo. Once the ridge was reached, I continued along it and in a short while I was on top of the highest peak (342m). The view from there was amazing I used it generously as a spice for my quite bland tuna salad andless than exciting melon.
After lunch, I kept going along the ridge until I reached what looked like the end of the mountain. There was a strech of apartment buildings down below that separated Inwangsan from Suraksan. I could either fly over this strech, or go back following the same rout, or go down the unknowns side of the mountain. I chose to be an explorer. The descent was somewhat tricky: it was steep and gravelly, and I kept slipping. After about an hour of this inconvenience, I spotted through the thick curtain of still green leaves a piece of asphalt and a roof of a temple. Quite by accident I came across a tiny temple called Hwan-hee-sa.

At first I didn't want to stop by to look at it. I've seen so many and I wanted to go home and relax a bit before my Scottish dance practice. However, a couple of hikers, seeing that I was to pass by the temple, urged me to turn around and pay it a visit. I obliged, not wanting to be rude. How grateful I am that I did because I dicovered a little piece of heaven and I was moved by a bit of kind human touch.

What's the temple like? Very much like any other Korean temple, except that this one is reallly small and has a very carefully tended garden. A short wooden stairway leads up to the garden surronded by two temple building on two sides, a pine grove on the third and a road on the fourth. First I was welcomed by a couple of merry dogs, a beautiful white one and a cheerful gray one. Three ajummas were busy digging, watering, weeding. They greeted me with genuine joy. Their bows and smiles made me think of stories in which Buddha sometimes checks upon his 'subjects' and comes to temples disguised as this or that and in which the temple people greet all strangers reverently and friendly hoping that one of them might be Buddha. Me a buddha? Yeah, right. Not in this lifetime, or any other. OUr similarity stops at our girth.

One of the ajummas, dressed in a gray quite traditional looking suit, was especially friendly. The lack of a common language didn't stop us from walking around the garden and admiring her plants. She would point at a flower and give me its name in Korean. Her lawn was of the brightest greenest softest quality you can imagine. She kept telling me to come back in the summer 'cause that's when the garden is at its nicest. In that little space she planted orchids, lotus flowers, bellflowers, creepers, all sorts of flowers and vines in hanging baskets, sculpted evergreen bushes.. It was late in the afternoon and the garden was awash in golden sunlight. The white dog sat on the lawn, yawning and enjoying the warmth. Everything in that garden hinted at the possibility of contentment, of happiness far away from the madding crowd
As I was trying to take a photo of a beautiful potted flower on one of the window sills the gray-suited ajumma in beckoned me to get it off the sill and put it on the glass table. She was too short to reach it and I was only too happy to assist her. I had thought the flower needed watering or pruning. I realized that the ajumma only wanted it down so that I could stick my nose in its middle and smell it. The flower looked like a hybrid of orchid and iris, and I didn't think it would have any fragrance at all, so when the sweet perfume entered my nose and like a lightning traveled down to the pit of my stomach, the experience almost knocked me down! No exaggeration here, I swear! I have qute a big sensitive nose, it's my blessing and my curse. This time it was the blessing of the best kind. What scent! No Calvin Klein and no
Channel can ever come up with something so delicately and perfectlly scented.

Seeing me unwilling to get my exterior breathing organ out of her flower, the ajumma was bursting with pride. I asked for the name of the flower, but she said she didn't know the name. It's just as well: I'll remember it as a mysterious flower of an unforgettable scent. I bet my life that I'll be sniffing at a lot of flowers trying to re-live the experience. The ajumma oferred tea, I declined stating the lack of time to enjoy it; she disappeared only to reappear hastily with a glass of home-made grape juice. It was simply delicious. She literally led me to a chair in her little garden, sat me down, motioned for me to relax and went back to her work. The white dog came over and sat next to me placing his soft white back under my hand.

This kind woman treated me like one of her precious flowers. I was so moved by her warm unaffected manner, tears came to my eyes. At the same time I felt ashamed at how little love I give to the world and how little attention I pay to other people's needs. Perhaps that is why I rarely get anything: I don't give anything. I thought of my summer when I could have been a more affectionate daughter, a more understanding sister, a more amusing aunt, a more attentive friend...

Sipping my juice and patting the dog, I watched the ajummas at work for a while... "Simplicity" was the word that kept echoing in my mind. It's important to cut the tangles that pull us down, it's important to make things simpler, to fell pretenses, to have a little garden to love and care for, sip ice-cold juice, sit in the sun and pet a loving animal... I should consider a simpler, gentler llife...

Having said my thank-yous and good-byes I hit the asphalt road that leads down to the city, to Muakjae subway station. The farther behind I left the temple with its dogs and flowers the further from me ran my romantic thoughts. Every step on the hard gray surface got me closer to the urban me, to the realist, non-dreamer, a responsible bore. Perhaps I go to the woods to find that 'head in the clouds' piece of me that has been lost, or worse, has never been there, I have just wished for it.
(The picture here is the picture of the "mysterious" flower.)