Sun Sep 21, 2003
I feel so good right now, the sunshine has been blazing after the recent rains, I walk outside in bliss with my eyes half closed just soaking it in. It’s much cooler now too at the onset of fall, gone are those muggy, humid days. Yesterday I decided I needed a physical challenge so I took on the lesser of the three peaks of Bukhansan. So many people climb these mountains, I believe it’s the busiest national park in the world with over five million visitors a year. On the north shore in Vancouver you could choose a mountain and probably be one of three people climbing it that day. I found it tough going because I’m totally out of shape and as always I’m put to shame by all the old grannies and little kids prancing around at the top. And groups of Korean men getting sauced on Soju, who incredibly never seem to take a nasty fall off the mountain, although it does happen quite often I believe.
Anyways, I ended up in a bad situation due to my undying stupidity, having scaled a sheer rock wall to the summit and finding it impossible to descend the way I had come. At that point, after abandoning the treacherous downward climb, I also realized I wouldn’t have any daylight making the two hour hike back, since it was now sunset. And I didn’t have a map so was quite ignorant of other routes down. As always happens in these situations, however, my guardian angel stepped in and saved my ass. This time she sent a group of foreigners up to the peak, they arrived as I sat hopelessly on the top of that damn mountain; three guys waving this ridiculous looking flag and taking pictures. It turned out the flag was a Newfoundland flag, they were a bunch of “Newfies” who were only too glad to allow me to accompany them down on an alternative route. From that point on I could relax and enjoy the sunset and scenery. We stopped in at a mountainside Buddhist temple on the way down. It was dark by now, but the temple was lit by candlelight and was absolutely beautiful with a waterfall twinkling in the moonlight next to it. There was a cave hollowed out in the rock by the waterfall accessed by this spiral stairwell of steps hewn into the rock. Deep in this sacred chamber was a lone monk saying his prayers and was quite startled by our entry but motioned for us to join him in his salutations.
So, it turned out to be a pretty good day, and those dudes live in Ilsan so I’ll probably hang out with them again. I’m so sore today though, phew. I took some awesome pictures but I haven’t the time to scan them these days. I’m planning on buying a digital camera at some point, then I’ll be flooding my website with pictures.
One more thing, there’s an insidious computer bug going around that gets transmitted through MSN messenger list auto, it’s undetectable by Nortons anti-virus, check your computer for the file jdbgmgr.exe, it has a teddy bear icon. Don’t open it, delete it. Thanks to Adrian who told me about it, it was on my computer.