Korea's Phallic Objects Abound...

We went for a hike on Friday, since Matt, Jonathan, and I were all off. We were supposed to meet at 8 to beat the Korean heat, but one of us slept in and we were delayed until 9. Good for me...Paris Baguette and the array of croissants was calling me anyway. The start of the hike up Suri Moutain (no, not Tom Cruise's kid...come on, get serious) was this hauntingly long flight of stairs from the street where my school is. It led up to a landing that held a monument commemorating the Korean War and all the soldiers who died during it. It was the first of many phallic objects we saw, but goodness, this was beautiful. Around us, the cicadas were singing their adament songs and we walked on.

A map met us next, helping us decide to first climb to the summit and then journey over to the swinging rope bridge before heading home. There were no distances marked on said map, so we estimated from the map that this should all take us about two hours. Ha!

We reached various plateaus through the forest; areas where we met up with Korean who were hiking also; areas specifically designed for working out with stratigically-placed workout equipment (in the forest! Strange). We also saw various signs, all indicating a direction and a distance to a destination which was marked in Korean. Jonathan had the genius idea to photograph the map and later compare the signs with our photo. Too bad none of the signs coincided with the markings on the map. Did they want to confuse us? Often times, after being duped into climbing a daunting hill, we surmised that the sign actually read something to the effect of, "You dumb foreigners, if you take this particularily enticing climb up, you will see nothing at all! But go anyway, dumb dumbs."

At long last though, the climb did result in a much anticipated view of our fair city. Below, an image of what we saw on our first of two summits:
Anyang is spread out before us, our house off the pic, at about five o'clock on the image.

The hike was HOT and even though it was raining outside, we were shielded by the canopy of trees. I was surprised to see maples, elms and oaks (is that where acorns come from? I can't remember. That was sixth grade science, I remember that much), as well as a multitude of evergreens. I'm sure there were also trees indigenous to Korea (or south Asia), but I didn't notice any. Hey, cicadas don't chirp in the deep forest. I hypothesized that they prefer the open air...even here, I'm a scientist (oh brother).

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of the other phallic symbol we saw (actually a pair of them). These two things are actually one of the Anyang attractions, visible in all the tourist books. They are cone-shaped pillars that stretch about 40 feet high, maybe taller. We stood beside them and felt pretty insignificant. They act as markers to indicate entrance to Suri Mountain from one side.

At long last, after talking to countless (okay, three) Korean men who helped to point us in the right direction, as well as one Japanese man who told us it was SO close, we finally stumbled upon the rope bridge. After seeing this picture, my mom was sure it was comprable in size to the Capilano Swinging Bridge, but I assure you, it was very short. This picture flatters the old bridge :)

Matt dropped his camera down the slots between the slats on the bridge, so him and Jonathan climbed down the steep embankment and, thankfully, retrieved it. Crisis averted.

All in all, we hiked for four hours. Amazingly, it was mostly uphill, save the last painful half hour, where we travelled down a paved road, straddled by these strange homes/restaurants/organized community (?). Strange doesn't really explain it. I didn't photograph it: I wanted to get out of there. And my feet really hurt. I remember Eric once told me that when he and his family were in Austria, they hiked up a huge ski hill in summer, and when it was time to go down, they all ended up with blisters on their feet. Isn't it odd the things you recall?

We caught a bus back to our house, since we ended the hike about a half hour walk from where we started and we were in NO mood to walk on a city street after all that calm and serenity.

I think I'll request my hiking shoes from home though...that walk was hard on the new sneaks.