The Jones' Korean Adventure

Sam and I are learning that it is impossible to "plan on" anything here! For example, as you know, a couple of weeks ago we "planned on" going on a 4 hour excursion to Costco - which turned into 8 hours! A week ago we "planned on" paying $20 for a meal, and ended up being charged $36 instead. Well, yesterday it happened again! We woke up to a beautiful Saturday morning (11:30 is still technically morning, right?)...blue sky, sun shining, humid as anything. We decided we'd go on a hike. It had been a long week of classroom confinement, so an adventure in the great outdoors was exactly what we needed! We had seen a map for a trail around "Seoul Grand Park" when we had been there a few weeks ago at the zoo. So, we decided that the 7.5 km path was perfect - we knew where it was and how to get there. We set out, and found that it was in fact so humid that we were sweating by the time we walked the 10 minutes to the subway station!

When we arrived at the park, we noticed that it was a bit clouded over in that part of Seoul - and a few little rain drops were falling...nothing major, just one every 10 seconds or so. We ate our kimbap that we had brought for lunch and set out to find our trail. Here's something interesting about hiking in Korea - it's mostly senior citizens who use the trails. We saw a total of two kids and two people our age while we were on the trail...the rest of the people we saw were definitely at least 55 or 60! And some of them were passing us!

We had a little confusion as to where our trail was, but after about 10 minutes we found a path that looked "hike-ish", figured that it had to be the one around the park, and decided to take it! It was great...beautiful scenery, a well kept and well marked trail to follow, and friendly people who responded to our "anyeong haseyo" (hello) as we passed them. After about an hour, the humidity was really taking its toll...we were both pretty much drenched in sweat...it was at the point where your energy level starts to wain. At that moment, what do we hear but thunder? I was in the middle of telling Sam how humidity can often cause "heat thunder" to occur even when a rainstorm isn't on its way (I'm pretty sure I've heard that somewhere before), when the first rainsdrops started to fall. And boy did they fall!! It became some of the hardest rain that I have ever been in, in my life! And did it ever feel good! The Korean hikers either whipped out an umbrella and continued hiking (who hikes with an umbrella?) or took cover under the trees. We considered taking cover under the trees, but seeing as it was a thunderstorm, decided that wasn't the safest plan of action, because we all know that thunder = lightning. Plus, the rain was exactly what we needed to refresh us. So, we kept on going. It felt like we were treking through the Brazilian rain forest - pouring down water, with beautiful green vegetation all around us. We decided that God had sent the rain at that moment cause he knew we needed it and that it would make us laugh (if you remember from a previous posting, the last time we were at Seoul Grand Park - at the zoo - it poured all day, and we weren't prepared for it then either!).

The rain eventually stopped, I rung out my shirt, and we kept on our way! We were absolutely drenched...not just wet - drenched...water was continually dripping off of us! The trail kept going up and up and up. Every so often we'd come to a little marker that had some Korean symbols on it and then a number - like 0.7 km. So we kept thinking we were almost back to our starting point. Then we'd walk the 0.7 km. and would come to another sign that said 1.5 km. Very confusing!! So we'd walk the 1.5 km. and come to a sign that said 1.2 km. (you get the point - lots of walking, lots of signs, then lots more walking). We did this for awhile, and then we started getting the feeling like something was wrong...it didn't feel like we were going "around" a park, it felt like we were going straight "away" from the park, and straight up a mountain. So we decided to try to ask other hikers where we were going. We'd point up the trail and say "Seoul Grand Park", and they'd nod and point in the direction we were going. That made us feel better for awhile, and then we realized that we still weren't getting anywhere (and 7.5 km had defnitely come and gone). So, we took more extreme measures and whipped out our "Survival Korean phrases" sheet, pointed to the Korean for "How do I get to..." and showed the hikers who passed us our subway map (the intent being that they would understand that we were trying to say "How do I get to the subway"...pretty clear, right? Wrong. Everyone that we tried our technique on kept pointing up the mountain, as if to say "To get to the subway station, keep going up the mountain"...we thought it was crazy, but figured it's their country, and they must know where the subway station is! What they really must have been thinking was, "I'm sure the foreigners want to see the view, otherwise why would they be out here?".

Well, we finally reached the look-out at the top of the mountain...and that was when we realized that we had a problem. We could see the zoo tent (which we thought we were heading around) far, far away in the distance. That's when we realized that the trail hadn't "felt" right because it WASN'T the right trail. At this point it was about 5:30 and we knew that there was no way we could hike back to the park before it got dark. Being the brilliant boy and girl scouts that we are, we had completely forgotten to bring anything "survival-ish"...no flashlight, no extra clothes, no matches...Nothing! We had a camera, a small pack of crackers, a frisbee, and our sunglasses.

At that moment, I turned to Sam and said, "What are we going to do?"...and 2 seconds later we heard a man say, "Can I help you with something?". It honestly feels like every single time we are completely lost or in a bad situation (both of which applied to this situation), God sends us someone who speaks English, and who can look at us and know that we have no idea what we're doing. With huge relief (it's always so nice to hear English!), we started asking the man how we could get back to Seoul Grand Park and to the subway. He was pretty surprised that we had hiked all the way from the park, and kept clarifying - "You came from Seoul Grand Park???". We were informed that there was no way we could make it back in time (which wasn't new information to us), and that the best thing would be to go back the way we had come for a little ways and then take a different trail out. I think he could tell from our blank stares that we had no idea where the path was that he was talking about, nor what to do once we were finally "out". So, he offered to lead us down!!

This was no small task...he led us for a good two hours...and boy did he ever walk fast! The Koreans are very sure-footed, and Sam and I were barely keeping up with him as he "ran" down the mountain. After the two hours, we came to a small town. He led us to a bus stop, told us to wait in the line and then ride the bus to Yangjae station, said his goodbyes (which included us thanking him profusely!!) and then was off on his way again. We took a 25 minute bus ride to the subway station, where we had to transfer from the orange line to the green line to the blue line to the purple line (which took about an hour and a half). We finally fell through the door of our apartment sometime after 9! What can we say? Just another brilliantly "planned" day in Korea!

I honestly felt like we were in Narnia at this point of our trip! We came up a small hill and found a lampost right in the middle of the forest. So random!