Jiwon's "last" hike

She is at it again, my friend Jiwon, I mean: about to go back home to New York and is using her "but, it's my last time" line to make me do things that I wouldn't or couldn't do otherwise. I wasn't going to hike yesterday. My office and my house and me in general are quite messy. I was going to use the weekend to take care of stuff, lots of stuff: organize my papers, toss out the rotting veggies in and stinky cheese from my fridge, do the long 0ver-due laundry, clip toe- and fingernails - that kind of stuff. Alas, it was to be Jiwon's last hike, and friends being more important than unmessing the mess, I went hiking on Dobongsan.

I felt quite tired throughout the day and quite scared at some hairy spots. At one point we came across a bunch of really scary rocks, the type that you can conquer somehow while going up but can't figure out how to go down w/o falling and breaking a limb or two. I managed somehow sliding on the whole length of my body relying basically on sheer hope for the best. As I was blindly feeling the smooth rock for any hint of support, I was cursing aloud and wondering how on earth I manage to find myself in such situations. What infuriates me even more is that the others see this obvious life and limb endangerment as something normal. You should see Korean hikers, visored ajummas pulling incredibel stunts of recklessness on the rocks. Incredible!

In the end, i still managed to get the usual after-hike high, as I always do. Also, I earned my pair of socks for the 4th consecutive hike. Four Saturday of sweat and tears for a pair of socks. A fair deal, indeed.

After a modest dinner of some tofu soup and 2 bowls of dongdong ju (only 2 in keeping with the promise to mysef to go easy on boozing for a few months or the rest of my life, whichever proves easier to achieve). Jiwon came to my house to pick up her bag that she had left there the night before. Since it was only 8, we decided to watch a movie. Oh, god, Henry James' novles should not be turned into movie scripts. "The Golden Bowl" was an exercise in dead unbelievable dialog and characters you couldn't care less about.
Today is the day to start demessing - but blogging is important, too.
P.S. Several hours later: couldn't make myself work. Instead, went for a walk by the river. The wind proved too cold for this adventure, so I abandoned the walk and went shopping to the Hannam market. Bought only a couple of items (this in keepin with my 'gotta really start budgeting now' approach to life); however, one of them happens to be the indecently expensive Ben & Jerry's icecream. Never bought it before, not here not in Canada, so I thought it was time to taste it, which I am about to do.