Sunday, September 10, 2006
Hike Day in Osan
Sam and I declared this past Saturday, "Hike Day in Osan". Our little city is surrounded by hills, and we decided it was time to explore them a bit. So we left our building, and headed to the right. The walk to the hills took us through some more rural-ish areas of town, which were neat to see. We also learned something about fishing in Korea. People here fish in STYLE!! We passed a pond on our way, which was surrounded by little platforms that had been built all along the water's edge. On each platform was a car seat...literally a seat that had been taken from an old car and placed around the pond...some were even in the recline position. I guess when you feel like fishing here, you can head to the pond, rent a car seat, and fish in comfort!
Our path was relatively easy to find, and at the trailhead, Sam had the great idea to take a picture of the map (even though we didn't understand the words on it), so that we could at least have an idea of the layout of the mountain if we were to get lost. What a smart guy! There were 6 "peaks" that our trail went to, with other smaller paths veering off from the main path every now and then. We decided to stay on the main path, and we managed to visit each of the six peaks.
Peak three was a real highlight for us. As we were approaching the top of the peak, we could see a Korean man through the trees, standing on a wooden bench, doing a little dance. We even managed to get a short video of it! When we reached the top, we better understood what the "happy dance" was all about, for lo-and-behold this peak was furnished with a fabulous hula-hoop that hung in the trees, waiting for hikers who wished to hula. Of course we both gave it a try!
Other highlights: we were able to get a view of all of Osan from peak two...very pretty to see our city in another perspective! Also, at the end of the trail, after we had come out of the mountains, we found a great outdoor gym...complete with highbars, bench press, and reclining benches for ab work.
When we were walking back through the rural area to get to Osan, we passed by three adorable Korean girls who were playing with a bike that one girl had. When we walked by, one little girl must have decided that we were much more interesting then the game they were playing, and she started to follow us. Every time I'd glance back, I'd see her skipping, closer and closer. Then the little bike rolled up with the other two girls, and they all got bolder. They start asking things to us in Korean, to which we responded..."What's your name?", "Do you like to bike?"...but the communication barrier was hard to breech. After about 1/2 a kilometre, the English teachers in us broke out, and we started counting with the girls - Them: "one, two, three", Us: "very good, four, five, six". Sam had some fun reciting the ABC's with them...I think they made it to "D". After about a kilometre, we started to wonder why it was that the girl's parents hadn't come looking for them. They were pretty far from home for such a young age. That's when we noticed that one girl had a cellphone hanging around her neck. It cracked me up because I could picture her Mom putting it on her in the morning and saying, "Honey, you can go anywhere you want today...you can follow people you don't know, and talk to strangers...just always keep this cellphone around your neck for safety, ok!" Extremely strange! We began to think those girls would have followed us all the way back home, so we turned around, started waving and said, "bye-bye". It took about 3 minutes of waving, and 50 "bye-byes" before they finally realized that they should probably stop following the weird blonde people and go back home.
All in all, a great day outside...the hills of Osan are beautiful, and we managed to see some things we hadn't seen before. I'm sure there will be many more "Hike Days" to come.
These are the little munchins that followed us back from the hike...so cute, eh!
Our path was relatively easy to find, and at the trailhead, Sam had the great idea to take a picture of the map (even though we didn't understand the words on it), so that we could at least have an idea of the layout of the mountain if we were to get lost. What a smart guy! There were 6 "peaks" that our trail went to, with other smaller paths veering off from the main path every now and then. We decided to stay on the main path, and we managed to visit each of the six peaks.
Peak three was a real highlight for us. As we were approaching the top of the peak, we could see a Korean man through the trees, standing on a wooden bench, doing a little dance. We even managed to get a short video of it! When we reached the top, we better understood what the "happy dance" was all about, for lo-and-behold this peak was furnished with a fabulous hula-hoop that hung in the trees, waiting for hikers who wished to hula. Of course we both gave it a try!
Other highlights: we were able to get a view of all of Osan from peak two...very pretty to see our city in another perspective! Also, at the end of the trail, after we had come out of the mountains, we found a great outdoor gym...complete with highbars, bench press, and reclining benches for ab work.
When we were walking back through the rural area to get to Osan, we passed by three adorable Korean girls who were playing with a bike that one girl had. When we walked by, one little girl must have decided that we were much more interesting then the game they were playing, and she started to follow us. Every time I'd glance back, I'd see her skipping, closer and closer. Then the little bike rolled up with the other two girls, and they all got bolder. They start asking things to us in Korean, to which we responded..."What's your name?", "Do you like to bike?"...but the communication barrier was hard to breech. After about 1/2 a kilometre, the English teachers in us broke out, and we started counting with the girls - Them: "one, two, three", Us: "very good, four, five, six". Sam had some fun reciting the ABC's with them...I think they made it to "D". After about a kilometre, we started to wonder why it was that the girl's parents hadn't come looking for them. They were pretty far from home for such a young age. That's when we noticed that one girl had a cellphone hanging around her neck. It cracked me up because I could picture her Mom putting it on her in the morning and saying, "Honey, you can go anywhere you want today...you can follow people you don't know, and talk to strangers...just always keep this cellphone around your neck for safety, ok!" Extremely strange! We began to think those girls would have followed us all the way back home, so we turned around, started waving and said, "bye-bye". It took about 3 minutes of waving, and 50 "bye-byes" before they finally realized that they should probably stop following the weird blonde people and go back home.
All in all, a great day outside...the hills of Osan are beautiful, and we managed to see some things we hadn't seen before. I'm sure there will be many more "Hike Days" to come.
These are the little munchins that followed us back from the hike...so cute, eh!
Here's Sam at the local fishing hole. These seats went all the way around the pond.
Here's the trail map. The picture we took came in really handy...we had to refer to it six or seven times over the course of the hike.
One of our rest breaks on the trail.
Here's the view of Osan through the hills...isn't our city pretty? We live in the big buildings right in the middle of the picture.
# posted by Becky @ 3:55 PM 
