Solo Hike

Might be the best day yet. I went out on a hike all by myself today. I ended up back at a park that I've been to already, but it really didn't matter since I didn't take any of the same paths really. Before I said it was impossible to be completely alone in Seoul, but today I got pretty close. Every chance I got I took the path less taken and it made all the difference (yeah, I said it). I often found myself wandering along narrow dirt trails deep in the woods of the hillside with no one in sight. It was amazing! The added bonus of being alone was that I could stop whenever I wanted to rest, eat or read. Every time I found a great quite place I took advantage. I took a lot of pit stops by babbling brooks with little waterfalls and "look out" rocks, but I think my favorite was this glorious tree that was growing out of the side of the hill. It's very thick trunk started to grow basically parallel to the ground about 4 feet up. I was able to walk across it like a balance beam and sit very comfortably in the Y of the branches. I could have stayed there all day.

Even with all the pit stops I got a good work out seeing as how I was in the park for about 6 hours. I made a few friends too. One forty something dude said hi to me and when I responded with a friendly hello he took that as a cue to take my hand and lead me over to his friends and introduce me as his new girlfriend. I promptly told him I had to get going in the opposite direction. I also got my butt groped by some lady behind me going up a flight of stairs because I had some pine needles on my pants. After she picked the dirt off she just kept sweeping for what seemed to be a completely unnecessary amount. And yet, in each encounter I never really felt like what was happening was totally inappropriate. They were just being friendly.

But the icing on the cake was on my way home. As I was walking out of the park gate a little girl out with her mom and baby sister gave me a big smile and said hello with her mom looking on proudly. This is not at all an uncommon occurrence, but this girl actually went beyond the hello to ask how I was doing and tried to have a conversation. I would say she was about five or six so I pulled out all the kindy conversation topics. It didn't last long, but the mom seemed very proud and happy. They ended up walking behind me on my way to the subway and when I stopped to get one of the amazing fried pancakes filled with melted brown sugar (fifty cents at the sidewalk vendor) they pasted me and stopped at the flower guy next to where I was. We made eye contact as I went by again so I said hello agian and the mom handed me a potted mum plant. I got potted flowers for talking to her kid for three minutes... I love Koreans.