Restless Peregrine: May 2005

So cool to have a pond like a biology lesson - the top fry must have hatched a few days ago, while I watched the bottom two come out of their egg just yesterday! May 30, 2005
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What's this? Goldfish fry!!! Just 3 of the MASSES now living in my pond...Yipee! May 30, 2005
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The Temple of Heaven, Beijing. February 2004
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When your camel has a mind of its own, you never know where you might end up sitting! Maduri (the camel), Gopal (her owner), and I. In the background - Bagirat and his camel. Rajasthan, January 2005.
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Changwon, May 19, 2005.
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A gate keeper on the trail to Samseonggung Hermitage. May 23, 2005
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To gain entrance to the hidden grounds of Samseonggung Hermitage, you bang the gong 3 times. A resident aescetic comes to silently open the tunnel door and lead you onto the mountainside. May 23, 2005
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The first view of Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Handprints on the pavilion wall. Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Don't ask me - I have no idea either!! Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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The tea house at Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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A stack of tiles waits with a worker's hat along a pavilion wall. Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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The retaining walls of Samseonggung, set with grindstones, mill-wheels, mortars and other stone implements. May 23, 2005
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Say cheese! Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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The roofline of one pavilion with a second in the background. Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Some of the trails on the Samseonggung grounds - they used to train horses on them. May 23, 2004
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View across the target ring to one of the pavilions. Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Try not smiling along! Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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A protector smiles over passers-by. Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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The carved base of the suspended floor of one of Samseonggung's pavilions. May 23, 2005
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Overview of one of the pavilions at Samseonggung. May 23, 2005
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Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Every pillar is dry-stacked - no mortar of any kind. Beautiful! Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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And what does "bae-dal-gil" mean?? No idea - but following these signs got me to a lovely tea house in the woods! Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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A couple of protectors along the trail. Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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My reflection in a mug of date tea - perfect for warming up in mountain wind storms! Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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A hermitage on the temple grounds. Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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A small lake on the temple grounds. Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Imagine being the one to lift some of those rocks!! Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Giant stone mortars join a grindstone to become one of the more than 1500 pillars on the grounds. Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Some of the over 1500 stone towers adorning the temple grounds. Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Gongs on the temple grounds. Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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A chair gets some level help on the inclined path. Samseonggung, May 23, 2005
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Almost traditional - a house in Cheonghakdong. May 23, 2005
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A stone face contemplates an imported Japanese Maple outside the village - reportedly the only town in Korea that escaped Japanese occupation before WW2, owing to its remoteness. Cheonghakdong, May 23, 2005
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Road sign on the narrow trail to the village of Cheonghakdong, Chiri Mountain. Very exciting, navigating on a full-sized bus! May 23, 2005
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Tap on a mountain spring, Changwon, May 19, 2005
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The Best Adventure

Thursday afternoon I climbed a mountain - what an adventure! This is that story. But before I begin, a disclaimer. One of my friends has a thing about literary integrity, so for his sake I need to make a couple of points perfectly clear. 1) We are not talking about Everest here. This mountain is routinely climbed by young children, old people, entire families on Sunday afternoon outings. It is directly behind my house, and normally heavily trafficked. I repeat, this is not Everest. 2) I am a big chicken. Coward. Neurotic. Who is deathly and unaccountably afraid of heights. There. Disclaimer finished. On with the story.

Clinging to a bald bit of rock face at the top of the universe, warily eyeing the 700 meter vertical drop to the military airfield below and lamenting the removal of the helpful rope trail by construction workers, I remember why I've only climbed this particular ridge line once. When I was new to this city and didn't know any better. Why did the worker at the trailhead let me go on, lifting the warning tape barricade for me to pass, when he knew this was ahead??? Damn. I'm not sure if I'm happy that no one is around to see my creeping-fear, or unhappy than no one's around to help me. How exactly did I get myself into this???!

The mountain behind my house is long and narrow - about 5 kilometers end to end and only 2-5 meters wide along most of the top. A trail runs the entire length, with a very steep stair approach up one side (the rocky end nearest my home, where I began), and a series of more gradual forested approaches up the other. The views are breathtaking, expansive - from the ocean in one direction to the charcoal fading of a host of mountains in the other. At 3pm on a sultry holiday Thursday, tired of endless weed pulling in my garden, it seemed like the best place to be.

Though I have done it several times and have no difficulties making it to the top, the climb terrifies me. Alone the entire distance, I distract myself from the tiny stones plummeting off the edge and the stomach-dropping vertigo of the treeless incline with a running pep talk. Out loud. If anyone else were around, they'd think me insane. But there aren't - it's just me and the mountain, getting closer and closer to the sky. And the happy knowledge that the worst part is over - I don't have to turn around and face this trail in reverse.

But wait a minute...is that hammering above? I crest the ridge to discover a 2-man construction team, building a shelter in the flat area at the trail head. Which is heavily barricaded with "danger!" tape in red and white bands. The thought of returning the way I've come is nauseating - something the workers must see. They motion me over, smiling, lift the tape away from the trail so that I can pass and wave me onwards. Phew! Must just be a safety thing for the construction site, I think. No problem.

Uh huh. Someone once told me in India that the biggest difference between that country and Canada is that there's no security in the knowledge that you are on a public trail. That in Canada, if someone skinned their knee on a trail there'd be a government inquiry and new safety measures would be put in place immediately. Whereas in India someone could have died on the trail this week, and no one would mention it. If those cases are opposite ends of the same extreme, then Korea falls somewhere in the middle - the construction workers... towards the Indian side.

The first couple of hours are brilliant - picturesque trail, absolutely deserted. I successfully negotiate the two places where the trail peters out on shallow cliffs, making ignominious descents from one narrow ledge to the next on my butt while gripping the low chain assists. This is the life! I am thrilled to be here!!

And then...the trail ends. Coming around a bend in the ridge, I meet 2 more workers, busy welding steel posts together to be anchored into the almost vertical incline at the base of which the trail continues. They are roped up, secure, very, very surprised to see me. All of us look at our watches simultaneously - know that there isn't enough time for me to return the way I've come before it gets dark. I've got to go on. The slope is about 20 meters high, bends, then continues another 10 meters (on which they've already built the frame of a staircase). I have no idea what to do.

The workers contemplate me, my teva sandals, the slope, each other. Finally one of them finds a secure spot and motions me over to him. We repeat this maneuver, slowly, slowly, slowly, until the stairs. Which I once again descend on my butt - which humors him to no end. He returns to his work, and I return to my solitary wander.

From this point on, the trail is complete. The workers have already finished a long staircase wrapping around the highest, steepest part of the ridge - nearly dead center. It goes up one side of a narrow jut of stone, has a viewing platform at the top, then drops down the other side in two sections. It is secured to the cliff face with steel beams set in horizontally, as there is nothing at all below the frame to secure to. The new wood and metal creak and groan, still settling in, as I go over them. I know that, workmen aside, I am the first person to test them. Exposed on all sides, the wind is fierce and howling. Though my knuckles are white and my heart is in my throat, I am LOVING this!!!!!

After the stairs, the trail descends a bit into a more forested part of the ridge. Eventually meeting the tape barricade on the other side, I slither underneath and take a deep breath. An old man in full mountaineering regalia eyes me oddly from his perch on the open side. Except for the workers, he is the first person I've seen. A bit later on, dropping back down into the valley, I meet him again. Wordlessly, he hands me a fat mandarin orange and continues on his way.

Where the trees narrow around the trail, storms of wood grasshoppers rain down on my passage. Curtains of electric green inch-worms dangling from invisible threads are brushed aside, dropping into the soft layer of fallen acacia petals still scenting the air. Pheasants lumber through the underbrush, gunshot flap of wings when startled, and a host of smaller animals scuttle nearby, invisible.

As the trail broadens at the fork of a stream, flattens out, the sun begins to drop below the ridge above me, suffusing everything with light and shadow. Sometimes the best adventure is the one closest to home.

The summit of Bongrimsan - the mountain directly behind my house. To reach this spot, I climbed about 700 meters almost straight up - no hairpins in this country, stairs all the way!! There's got to be a better way down!!! Changwon, May 19, 2005
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