Walking the Haguicheon

Yesterday (OK this was a week ago now) I woke too late to go for my morning run. It was after 10am, the sun was too high in the sky and the temperature was 30 in the the shade. Not ideal running conditions. So I decided to walk my running route instead and take some photographs along the way. After lathering my Celtic skin with sun cream and grabbing a bottle of water I set off.

The River Hagui runs behind the apartment building where I live. It runs down from the mountains in to the Anyang River, which in turn empties in to the huge Han River in Seoul. I read somewhere that the rivers in Anyang used to be toxic, draining the waste of the industries that lined their banks, but they must have been cleaned up and regenerated some time ago because now they are actively used as public parks and serve as conduits for nature through the concrete city.

At 8.30am (and again at 8.30pm) the pathway above is absolutely packed with runners, joggers, power walkers, cyclists and elderly strollers. However at 11am it was too damn hot and, apart from me, the route was sensibly deserted.

Soju blues

Today’s hangover cure was coffee and french toast, followed by climbing a mountain and lying on a rock in the sun, like a lizard. Here are some things I saw on the way up.

Hot chilli peppers in the blistering sun…

A telecoms mast disguised as a pine tree.

Korean Summer

At last something approaching my idea of summer is here. Almost every day since I arrived has been characterized by thick cloud cover, high temperatures and ridiculous humidity; the dullness broken only by occasional torrents of rain. July and early August is the height of the monsoon season in Korea. Whilst when you’re up a mountain this can have a marvellously dreamy, mysterious effect, for day to day urban life it can get pretty tiresome. So I was more and more pleased as over the past couple of weeks the clouds have gradually broken up to reveal blue skies and bright sunshine. There’s more of a breeze, the light is amazing, the stark modernism of Anyang suddenly looks great, and you can see the moon at night. Even the humidity has dipped, although the temperature in the sun has soared into the 30s…

Here are some sun-soaked pictures, from more hiking around Gwanaksan and a trip into Seoul (to pick up my Alien Registration Card – yes I’m now legit).

I don’t know what kind of bird that is. There were a pair of them. They sounded like crows, moved like magpies, but had tawny plumage, turning to a rust colour on the almost fur-like feathers of the head.

One thing that’s great about Koreans is that they know what to do to both enjoy and mitigate the effects of the weather. For instance, they will pitch a tent anywhere.

Der Fischmarkt in Busan ist Kult!

After whetting our appetites on a boat trip past misty headlands such as these, we headed for the Jagalchi fish market. I loved this place. I enjoyed it a lot more than the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, maybe because I didn’t visit after drinking sake with Ainu carpenters until 5am, getting up at 7, eating a McDonalds sausage and egg McMuffin SET before trying to look at raw and live fish and shellfish in a giant, dimly lit, wet underfoot shed whilst crazy Japanese guys driving mopeds and mini forklift trucks loaded with tubs of writhing octopus tried to run me down…

Busan: The Docks, man

After only a short time in the job, last week my school closed for the summer half of the 2 weeks annual vacation holiday. To be honest everything still feels something like a holiday at the moment so I didn’t really feel the need for a bit, but I thought I should do some travelling in Korea so I joined my co-workers and some of their friends on a trip to Busan.

Now I was in Busan last September for a conference with my previous job (in fact that basically precipitated my whole move to Korea), so it was a little strange to be back so soon. I remember arriving with no expectations at all, allowing those expectations to be met, and then over the course of a week, slowly becoming fascinated with the place. On my final day there last year I visited a serene mountain top Buddhist temple and also took an interminable taxi ride across city to the airport, going right through the heart of the docks, with lorries carrying Maersk containers and huge pieces of industrial plant clogging up the road. Of course, given my fascination with infrastructure and industrial urban clutter, it was a journey I didn’t want to end.

Gwanaksan

Craving a bit of peace and quiet and countryside after 3 weeks of Anyang’s unrelenting urbanism (see first post), on Sunday I strapped on my super Asolo hiking boots (thanks big sister!), packed a small backpack of provisions (waterproof, kiwi fruit, water), and walked uphill the half mile or so to the entrance of the mountain trail. The city’s relentless apartment blocks continued up the incline, eventually giving way to a path through fields of smallholdings growing chilli-peppers, yellow courgettes and hot-housed tomatoes, before these too gave way to pine forest.

The path was well-signposted and, despite the weather predicting thunderstorms, fairly busy with hikers. I’d read about how much Koreans are into hiking, and especially into hiking gear. So at first I was slightly amused by the layers of sweatproof, waterproof, neon clothing; the retractable trekking poles; the giant stuffed backpacks and GLOVES everywhere.

Moving uphill, the cover of the pine trees was occasionally left behind to reveal scenes like this, stunted pines jostling with young deciduous trees and low shrubs:

Soon it became apparent why so many people had so much gear. As it rose more steeply the path began to be broken up by rocky outcrops and groups of boulders.

Welcome to Anyang

On Sunday I climbed a mountain. The header image above [edit: now below this post] is a picture I took halfway up. The sky has looked like that pretty much every day since I arrived in Korea on July 1st. I’ve been peering at the mountain through the narrow slit of light between two apartment buildings that reaches my bedroom window every day for the past few weeks. Some days you can barely see it at all through the low clouds. Others you can discern honey coloured rock outcrops on its upper reaches. On Sunday the clouds were no thinner  than usual but I had nothing to do so I thought I’d climb it anyway. The mountain is called Gwanak-san (관악산), the city you can just see occupying the entire plain between the surrounding mountains is Anyang (안양시), my home for the next year.