Adventures in South Korea 2!: Birthday Hike

School Birthdays are a big mystery in Korea. No one seems to be able to explain what they actually are, and at the same time no one understands why we're confused about them. We're told that the birthday is the date the school first opened and had classes, which makes sense. But, the thing that doesn't make sense is that every school has a different birthday and they fall all throughout the year. Andrew's school's birthday, for example was on April 6th. So, according to his co-teacher, the first day his school was open and had students in it was April 6th, more than a month after the school term began. Where were the students until 4/6? When he asked, "so, that first year the students started school on 4/6?" he was told, "Yes." Who knows?! Anyway, that's neither here, nor there. The important part is that the school is closed for a few days in honor of it. When they're giving you a 4 or 5 day weekend, you don't question it.

Along with the days off, Andrew's school gave the staff and students a little gift. Everyone was given a long, blue sweat towel with the schools name painted on it. With that, the staff was given sweet, sporty fanny packs. Just what everyone wanted!

To honor his school on it's special day, and get some use out of the new fanny pack and sweat rag, Andrew decided to spend the day hiking in Bukhansan National Park, conveniently located between Seoul and the North Korean border! (Kidding! Kind of... It's perfectly safe...)

Koreans, especially the older ones, are the best dressed hikers in the world. That's a fact. And they don't only wear their gear to the mountains and the trails either. We find them decked out, carrying their packs and walking sticks on the street, through the grocery store, in the mall, at restaurants. Everywhere. At any given moment, they are prepared for an exodus from the city!

As if any Korean headed to the mountain wasn't already dressed to the nines, the street heading to the entrance of the park was lined with stores selling every type of hiking apparel and apparatus you can imagine, just in case.

Shameless...

And The Redface was right next door to The North Face store too!

Korean war leftovers...

This shouldn't, but it looks so dirty!

And isn't there a copyright on Smokey?

Surprisingly (and sadly), after having spent this long in Korea, Andrew managed to scrape together a pretty Korean-worthy hiking outfit.

This is probably offensive to someone somewhere

북한산국립공원

Bukhansan National Park

The most unhelpful map

도봉산

Dobong Mountain

(Maybe. The map was really hard to read.)

They say that normally you can see Seoul from the top of the range, but the yellow dust was too thick at the time. The view was still impressive, but not as much as it could have been.

Hallelujah!

Gimbap lunch on Insubong Peak!

The view during lunch

A little after lunch, Andrew hiked a bit more, then decided to head on down. Everything was going well until he came to a clearing about 3/4 of the way down, filled with old people. The clearing was just a huge, smooth boulder, and as he was walking across it, he went down. As a foreigner in Korea, when you walk into most places or situations, at least one Korean is quick to point out and say, "Oh, look! A foreigner!" This boulder on the mountain was no different. Just as Andrew heard the words coming from an old man's mouth and saw all the heads turning his way, his feet went out from under him and he started sliding. Of course, a foreigner falling is much more interesting than a foreigner just walking. Every eye was on him. When the slide stopped, he picked himself up, struck a pose like a gymnast and said, "I'm OK," in Korean. They laughed that off and let him be, until one of them noticed the blood...

This was after the first cleanup attempt

As good as new

It was a group effort, but between about 5 old ladies, they pulled together a pretty good makeshift bandage made of tape, band-aids, ripped fabric and napkins!