Day 113: Encounters With Communists

Wow am I ever behind on my blog!!! It's gonna take a while to get it all caught up - this last week has been so busy! But be patient my precious bloggers - good things come to those who wait! ;-)

Steve, Brad, Andrea and I were going to go camping this weekend, but instead we decided to just do a day-hike. We really hadn't planned out the details for camping at all, and plus it was so hot and humid outside that we didn't feel like dragging tents and stoves and all that other camping gear up the mountain! We took a bus over to Bukhansan National Park and started up the trail.

This was supposed to be a leisurely, relaxed hike but it was a lot more gruelling than we thought it would be! It was quite steep in a lot of places and the trail we took went up and over a big mountain peak providing astounding views of the forest and city below. It was SO HOT outside that Andrea and I really didn't think we were going to make it when we first started out, but we soon got into the groove of things. It was a five-hour hike and probably the most scenic one I've been on yet.

Brad found a really gawdy, hideous-looking picture/clock frame made up of sea shells by the side of the road at the beginning of the trail and thought it would be funny to drag it along our entire hike so we could take silly photos all day long. The picture was quite large and cumbersome and I didn't really believe that he was going to haul that ugly thing up and over the mountain, but the boy did! We took lots of hilarious photos with us and the photo in all kinds of silly poses - too much fun! We got a lot of strange looks from Korean hikers who were passing us, that's for sure! Early in the hike we also came across a field of rice paddies with some cut-outs of Communist soldiers for god knows what reason placed throughout the field (target practice? a sober reminder of what dangers lies just a few kilometres north at the border? Korean-styled-scarecrows to keep the birds away? Who knows!) This was way too good to pass up so we took more silly photos of us with the cut-outs, and Andrea even filmed a hysterical video clip of me sexually-harrassing/dry-humping the Commie soldier. ("What's that you fuckin' Commie? You don't fuckin' like democracy? Well here's what I think of your fucking Communism! Ughh...take it bitch! Who's your daddy!? Yeah bitch, democracy always wins out! Take that, you fuckin' Commie!) Yes it was completely un-PC and perhaps rather insensitive to all our Communist friends out there (I really don't have a problem with Communism - honest!) but it was really funny!! I guess you had to be there?

The view of the city from the mountain peak was absolutely breathtaking! Bukhansan is right at the edge of the city and so from the top of the peaks you can see the entire city sprawling out below. It was so surreal - from high up Seoul looks like SimCity! Rows and rows of apartment towers spreading out in infinite direction, with freeways snaking through the labrynth of streets below. Astounding! It looked like Seoul was a 'sea of city' washing up against up the slopes of the mountains, as if the tide had just come in and was now going out... It's really hard to do it justice with words.

After our hike we went to LaFesta and had a yummy dinner at TGI Friday's. Then we went back to Brad's to hang out for a bit and relax after our physically-active day. I ended up crashing at Steve's instead tonight and him and I stayed up late quizzing each other with trivia cards from Trivial Pursuit. Since Andrea has to leave back to Canada next week Steve is now officially my future partner on The Contenders. (No word yet on a film date - stay tuned!) All in all, a great day!