Conquering the Night

This idea was put in our heads by our friend Warren, a Korean hiking enthusiast who enjoys organizing hikes with expats at least once a week. His latest installment was a midnight to sunrise hike. Even with fair warning, Megan and I only decided to go commit as of Friday morning, recognizing that we hadn't hiked in far too long.

One would probably think of quite and solitude when you think of a night hike, but sadly 33 other people felt the same way about a chance to hike while avoiding the current heat wave we are going through. Walking with a loud group of head lamps flashing in my eyes was not exactly what we were going for, so at the first chance to really lag behind we did, and the rest of the night was amazing. We sat a stared at the stars and city lights for hours while listening to music. Each time we got a little restless or cold or too bugy, we just picked up and walked to a new beautiful rock formation, which was inevitably 10 mins away. We let our eyes adjust and just walked through the woods on our own. We may have spooked ourselves walking in the absolute quiet and the dark, but for the most part were completely at peace. However, Megan jumped and ran back twice. Once when a stray cat (the only "wildlife" we saw out there) came a little too close for her taste. She then proceeded to throw her bag of tuna gimbap of the side of the cliff so as not to temp it to come back. I assure you she feels bad about the littering, but was genuinely in fear for her life. The second time was in day light on our way down, when she walked into a spider's web and thought it was on her. It was not. Both times I thought she was going to fall down and creak her skull open.

As always, the way down was an adventure. Even though it was much easier in daylight, we did not know where we were. We almost always just pick a path that seems to be heading down and go for it. Not sure why, but we were temped by a narrow "path less traveled" kind of trail because it looked like it went down faster then the one ahead of us. We pasted a few "don't go this way" signs and ended up trekking through the woods out onto a fenced in soccer field. We were not supposed to be there, but we made it. I needed a night like that. Amazing.

The only downer for the night was finding out that the breakfast place that we wanted to go doesn't open until 11. Nothing around here is open at 7:30 am. Not even Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts. What's that all about?