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.
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.
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.
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.
Korea Change 
