Ma is finally here.  We’ve been sampling the Korean culture over the last week or so.  A few pictures to tell a story instead of a heap of words that cannot even begin to express how cool it is that she’s visiting.

The dreams are running rampant in my sleep.  Anything from getting into fights to protect Nicole’s honor to playing hockey and falling through the melting outdoor pond.  It’s been a while since I got creative with the writing, am still waiting for feedback from some of my trusted readers, am working this week on putting forth concerted effort on the pitch letter to the prospective literary agents, am looking to dust off the Spanish skills, yes, the Spanish skills.  Not only is the Spanish more useful throughout the world, I need to be able to impress Nic’s sister, Amber, when she comes to visit at the end of the summer (she studied Spanish in uni); nothing like being able to tease the girlfriend’s sister in two languages.  Nonetheless, I just the other day finally learned how to say, “Have a good day” (jo-un ha-ru dae-sae-oh) in Korean from the guy down at the 24 hour convenience mart in my building.  Two and a half years and that’s all you got, Mr. H?  Well, aside from ordering beer, food and taking a taxi, there’ve been other things going on.  For two and a half years, the mind-numbing cold and boredom has been thawing.  It continues on, thawed by life.  Nicole.  Burgeoning growth at every turn.  Great friends, decent wine, new dishes, new music.  Paul and SoYuan’s baby, Emily Jade.  The business of selling writing.  New writings.  New travel plans.

 

Dreams are abound here in the new season of Spring and I have been using the camera quite a bit lately.  A month and a half ago, I took a hike and saw the dormant buds tightly bound against the cold; now, the whole city and its mountains are a-flower; it snows pink and white petals everywhere.  Two weeks ago, Nic and I rode 100 km on the scooter, most of it with Punchy, on a tour out to a temple.  Sure, sure.  Seen a lot of temples here in this web commentary, but each has a little of its own character.  Besides, if you can mess around with the photos on your home computer, anything can look unique in its perspective.  Hoping to do another tour, this time with The Original Two, as Nic will be staying up in Seoul this weekend.

 

Just last weekend, Nic and I went on some beach/urban hikes in search of the buildings that would be most suitable for our eventual co-habitation.  Likely, this will be the largest and most affordable place I have ever lived in.  Ah, look at me, getting all domesticated.  Hey, now, I have cooked, I have cleaned, I have made my bed.  It’s just that I do it more frequently now.  The plans on the docket for me, (the 300,000 KRW bachelor) and the young Milwaukee vixen who snapped me out of the clutches of a Korean cougar at the bachelor auction back in December (taking the bidding from 220,000 straight to 300,000 scared that much older Korean woman away) are a visit from Ma to the Big Bu at the beginning of summer; after that, Nic and I will tour Thailand where we’ll explore and trek for three weeks before heading over to Cambodia for twelve days.  Ten days after we arrive back here and get our stuff into the new apartment and start the Fall semester (keep your fingers crossed for Nic getting a suitable job at a university; smart as she is, it shouldn’t be a problem), Amber will visit for ten days.  Then, buckle down and save more money for the N. America tour in January 2010. 

Way back in May 2007, the definition of a Street Commander was decreed on this website.  As you all know, an SC in the ROK is one who is defined by his own terms.  So now that the Canadicans (the dynamic two-wheeled, two-member squad/gang of expat/waegook whiteys from the two biggest countries in North America; let’s call them The Street Commanding Canadicans (SCC)) are fully mechanized, Street Commanding has a whole new dimension.  Let’s see how the guidelines stand up with the Canadicans overlay. 

 

Guideline # 1.) an SCC has sense enough to know when it is time to go on solo excursions for the purposes of adventure and/or meditation.  Well, just look at the thriving masses of this motorbike gang; the numbers (and pictures) should speak for themselves.  Though solo ventures are encouraged, I doubt that I would have had the sack to go on those lonely, remote roads without Punchy (my partner in crime) when roving the countryside.  Surely, adventures have been and will be had, though the impending arrival of Punchy and SoYeon’s baby girl might put the dynamics of the Canadicans and the Guidelines of Street Commanding into another revision.  Oh, and meditation?  What’s that?  Just concentrate on not getting smashed by a bus.

 

Guideline # 2.) an SCC has sense enough to have a sense of direction (never eat shredded wheat).  Pardon my French, but êtes-vous de la foutue plaisanterie je? (Thank you, Babelfish.com, because I don’t speak a lick of French past croissant, Dijon, douche baguette and chatte.)  This country doesn’t even have names for its streets.  It took me three weeks to find the best way to get to work; furthermore, I still get lost going and returning from Punchy’s place on the other side of town.  I am getting better at finding my way, though, and I know much more of this city due to my losing my way so many times.  When the Canadicans ride, a general direction or area is often settled upon, but since we are not fully automated, we have neither GPS nor walkie-talkies built into the helmets yet, so we end up in some pretty outlandish outlying areas.

 

Guideline # 3.) an SCC has sense enough to know that these excursions can and must be made without any plans later in the day (or night) that might impinge guilt or obligation.  Guilt?  What’s that?  And the only obligation is to pump that 125cc past 100 kph on those long straight-aways in the middle of BF Nowhere.  Oh, and the obligation to generally kicking ass.  If the excursion is, indeed, an outing for the Canadicans, it is automatically assumed that it is an all-day venture, finishing with a few cans of Kronenbourg outside the local GS 25 (convenience store).    

 

Guideline # 4.) an SCC has sense enough to dress smartly and comfortably, bringing along essentials so anything beyond the absolute minimum amount of money is required.  Lesson hard-learned in winter riding is that wind cuts through two pairs of gloves with fierce ease and can take up to a day to get full circulation back into your fingertips.  Money for coffee and gas is essential.  There is no such thing as too much money, because anything can happen in the middle of nowhere.

 

Guideline # 5.) an SCC has sense enough to know his limits and to push those limits—physically, emotionally, spiritually—to extremities never before discovered or rarely visited.  Yeah, I pushed my limits physically and nearly had to have my pinkies removed due to their near-death experience in the wind sheer.  Emotions?  Well, you’re fucked if you let those get the best of you when driving in this country.  The Zen of Driving is a practice encouraged for your safety as much as for your happiness.  Spiritual?  You best find your God or some inner-peace before taking on the drivers here who think they are still riding their bicycles around.  Personal space does not exist here in The Big Bu (much less in the Seoul-Suck up north, I can assure you).  But outside the city limits, the views and silence and solitude and the relative cleanliness are so choice.  If you have the means, I highly recommend it (a la Ferris Bueller).

 

Guideline # 6.) as per the tenet set forth in guideline #5, an SCC has sense enough to keep an open mind.  Going with the flow is much better than fighting the way of things on the road here.  As mentioned above, the Zen of Driving is best applied at all times.  And remember that most traffic “laws” here are like the “rules” of Street Commanding itself: more like suggestions or guidelines rather than actual laws or rules.

 

How Street Commander are you?

It really has been too long since I’ve written here, and I really need a break from the novel-writing genre.  So I’ll just let fly here and post it without much looking it over. 

 

The specter of death has long since faded from my mind—though it never really will entirely, I don’t think.  Nonetheless, I am fully enjoying life here.  I was playing beach volleyball for a couple months toward the end of summer; that was a lot of fun but I have a lot of work to do on my game.  Paul, Keri and I did fairly well in the soju tourney we played in at Gwanganli Beach-ee.  Before each match, we had to drink a shot of Korea’s finest blechk-yak liquor and the winner of a match had to have 2 more each; it’s not as bad as it sounds since that booze is only about 20% alcohol, so there were no soju swerves on the volleyball court.  Anyhow, we made it well past what the experts predicted.  After falling on my ass a few times (not from the soju, but from competitive effort and general clumsiness), I was sore for a few days.  All good fun.  Am looking forward to the spring for more volleyball.  Am also considering getting a surfboard.  What the hell, right?

 

Speaking of what the hell, I decided to start a fairly regular jaunt up this hill or that here in Busan.  I am glad I didn’t get into it very much in my first tour here in this city, because there are so many new things for me to see.  My usual partner is a co-worker named Peter; he and I have started this ridiculous tradition of naming new paths that we find on our Friday hikes behind Silla University.  My first one was Nikolai’s Bitch.  Peter has Pete’s Paradise.  Other names include The View (for it’s unobstructed view of Gaegum, Seomyeon and all other points beyond out to the sea) and Lion’s Den (for some funky rock formation that looks like, you guessed it, a lion’s den).  Anyhow, the hiking and activities are good and I am seeing a whole new side of Busan.

 

I am also seeing a whole new side of Korea, a side that many foreigners—or natives, for that matter—don’t really get to experience.  Paul “Punchy” Dumont and I have gone on some epic scooter trips topping 125 kilometers in an afternoon of crossing valleys, going up and over mountains and into sparsely populated areas that are far from the filth and pace and sounds of the city.  After riding in the city to and from work, it is most exhilarating to really open up that 125cc engine on the open road (basically, thrills me but I don’t know if I’d be able to handle much more than 60mph on any two-wheeled motorized contraption).  And the sights we’ve seen (sorry there aren’t any photos) have been nothing short of spectacular: harvest time smells; vast open fields as far as the eye can see, hills a shade of dark green I didn’t know existed in Korea.  Now the fall colors are almost all gone, but last week we still went on a ride up a few mountains that I had actually hiked before (these paved roads were unbeknownst to me before I got my wheels); two or three weeks ago after we had gone about 50 clicks up the western bank of the Nakdong River; when we crossed back over to the eastern side and were on our way back to Busan, we came upon a temple.  Now, seen one temple, seen them all.  This is not true if it is sparsely populated, in the middle of natural beauty, and completely unknown to you before you come upon it.  This temple last week had just recently had a 20 foot Buddha carved in the side of the mountain.  I will be sure to return to that place in the spring, as the grounds beneath the carving were still under construction.

 

Ah, yes.  Under construction.  I am a mere three weeks away from my self-imposed deadline on my novel Toil and Sound.  It has been a long road, but the rewards are coming in almost daily doses as plot, theme and character are falling into place.  I also had some success teaching the writing, though in a far less creative setting.  I worked with a couple small groups over a ten week period and saw some major improvement in the ones who came to class frequently.  Their proficiency level went from barely sentence-level comprehension to almost coherent paragraphs.  I’d say that’s not bad for only 20 hours of instruction.  I hope my department head will be able to generate some support for a class with the same students that meets for forty hours for the whole semester and is a for-credit course; this will be sure to help with the immersion side of the class.

 

I’ve promised to keep these short, but there is so much to catch up on.  Please leave comments on the page (click below) so I know that you are reading and what you like and hate about me and my writing.  Future entries will include more pictures, a tale of a bachelor auction that I am going to be on the block for (a good cause: local orphanages), a three week working vacation on an island off the coast of Busan, and maybe, just maybe, even a snippet from the novel.  Also, since my vacation plans include a lot of reading, I’ll write brief reviews of the books rather than just the typical synopsis.

A lazy Sunday here in the Sassang district of Busan, South Korea.  Flipping through the seventeen channels hoping for good English-language movies, instead watching two or three English-language bad movies, reading the first chapters of A Tale of Two Cities.  The sky overcast, not giving much motivation for an introspective hike the summit of some nearby peak.  The previous day was spent running around near Gwangan Beach to different co-workers’ apartments to get a feel for what I want to live in over the next two years.  Currently, I stay in this large three-bedroom aparte near the university.  Often I find myself going to the western-facing window to look out across the Nakdong River valley for a partial view of the mountains on the far side that sprout up out of that plain with no foothills. The haze in the mornings is not sickening like it was up in Seoul; a good breeze off the river and the nearby ocean have dissipated by mid-afternoon on most days to reveal all the splendor that is this vast area of rich farmland.

 

As I entered my third bad movie of the day, the sun finally emerged, taunting me on my day of leisure, mocking me for having not the sack push through a mild fatigue.  And then I hear the flat sound of one object hitting another.  Two years ago (when I first came here), in a previous apartment near a busy intersection in another part of town, I became quickly familiar with the sound of metal crunching on metal, seeing the aftermath of many car accidents as I looked down from my tenth floor window.  Once I was on ground level and happened upon an accident only seconds after a speeding food delivery man on a motorcycle had been smacked to the pavement in that intersection.  From the distance of my lofty apartment window, my experience was always diluted.  However, in the case of the motorcycle man who lay in semi-conscious writhing pain, a sickening feeling came over me.  In another instance in Seomyeon (downtown Busan) back in the spring, I was visiting Paul and we were having a few beers, sitting at a window that overlooked a busy street.  I glanced outside one moment and then looked back out not a minute later to find a man lying in the street after being hit by a taxi, one shoe twenty yards from him.  He was alive and, after a half hour of not being moved, he was finally taken away, minus one shoe, minus his ability to walk on shattered legs.  Once, when I was a ten year old on the way to soccer practice with father, a motorcyclist ran a red light going the opposite direction of me, slammed into a car pulling out from a parking lot.  I saw—but probably only imagined—a brief second of him flying through the air and landing on his back in spine-shattering collision with the pavement.  I never knew if that man died; my father told me not to look and we drove off to practice.

 

In all these instances I was mere moments and short distances from witnessing the actual event.  In all these instances, I was one of the many helpless bystanders whose minds and hearts are pulled in many different directions.  To help is to face the ultimate fear of being near death when it takes over the injured body.  To stand there gawking is to be helpless because you don’t have the training to help these unfortunate souls.  To walk away shaking your head and glancing back at the carnage is to have that incredibly selfish thought, “Better him than me.”  All of this concocts a wickedly hot feeling in the belly, unable to get images—imagined or real—out of the mind.  Like anything traumatic, the reel of these images and sounds is played again and again, taking away the appetite, inducing nausea.  And empathy is a strange bedfellow to selfishness.  Disgust that these things happened to anyone is superseded by the disgust at having that wicked thought go through your mind.

 

So today, as I got up from the couch to see the severity of the accident on the street below, I could see nothing of twisted metal or gawking bystanders.  In the far end of the parking lot, four boys played with a ball, in the elevated playground a mother turned her child on the merry-go-round, the street off to my left went about as usual.  Then I saw a man running down the drive to the security office.  I followed his path in reverse to find an old man on his back, twisted, unmoving, his shoes ten yards from him.  Then I knew I was seeing my first dead body, the man having fallen, been pushed, or leapt to his demise from the building just perpendicular to mine.  That sickening imagination—the sound is replayed and distorted in my mind even now, two hours after, the sound resembling a large brown paper bag being popped in that loud, hollow way—that sickening selfishness, that sickening sadness overtook me as it slowly registered that it was not metal crunching on metal, that injured people would not one day walk again, that I was spared by only a few moments from seeing this man plummet in front of my gaze over the pastoral delta valley of Busan, that there was only one survivor of this collision: the Earth into which this man liquefied his insides  As blood trickled from beneath the man, the various people —rubber-neckers, security, paramedics, police, detectives, photographers—came and went, the woman still turned her child in the merry-go-round, the boys still played.  I went to the window at intervals to see what was unfolding.  There were no screams of horror of sadness over this man.  Only hovering people, flashbulbs of the investigator’s camera, a white sheet stained in red. 

 

I just looked out, twilight has set in, the day is over, the body gone.  Has this man left an impression on anyone’s life while he was alive?  Perhaps that is why he died: to leave an impression on the living, to show that we must be honest with ourselves in saying that empathy and sympathy are not the same thing; that empathy and selfishness closely exist; that the sorrow we feel for the misfortune of others has the variables of time, distance and imagination: the sorrow we feel for our loved ones’ misfortunes is much different than the sorrow we feel for that of strangers.  Then we think, given the chance, would we unflinchingly put ourselves in the place of a friend or family member who has suffered some calamity?  The sorrow, the empathy we feel for those unknown people—those who fly through intersections, over hoods of cars, off the tops of buildings, starve in famines, burn in airplane crashes—this empathy is distorted by its far remove from our lives, it is twisted by the thought, “Better them than me.”

Often I wake up in the morning with the most random songs in my head; recently, there have been the likes of Madonna’s “Material Girl” and Michael Jackson’s “Bad.”  Just a couple days ago, White Snake’s “Here I Go Again (On My Own).”   While some of you might say that’s poppycock, hack writer BS, saying, “How could these a propos songs from the 80s really be the ones he woke up to? Unless he’s just making this up.”  Though I am terribly inspired by the Material Girl, I assure you, I am not making this up; besides, my sister can vouch for this madness, having heard me mumbling lyrics as I made my breakfast.  I also assure you that I have a penchant for seriously bad ass pop music from the 80s.  But, while I wouldn’t mind it if Tawny Kitaen were grinding and sprawling on my white Jaguar XJE (as in that famous video shown on MTV back when they showed videos; instead of “reality shows” featuring people like Kitaen and their washed up careers floating lifelessly next to the likes of Bob Saget), the best I can hope for here is an undersized hoofed and antlered animal dancing on hind legs wiping its butt on the front end of a semi-shiny black motor scooter that I am pretending is mine by simply by leaning up against it while wearing my sexy pink and white floral moo-moo.

 

All horrifying images and great music aside, it’s really as if I had only been gone for a short while.  I’m an old pro in this country, especially this city, knowing where to get my favorite foods, what to expect from the people (for the most part), and how to get around.  Professionally speaking, things are going fairly smooth.   There were some schedule changes and I don’t start teaching until the 29^th.  With this, I am fine.  Over the next week, I can concentrate on getting my permanent place and familiarizing myself with the curriculum.  During my interview, my supervisor showed interest in my writing background and, while she has forgotten a few things along the immigration process, she remembered this thing.  So, off the bat, I will be working with her (but likely with many people) to develop curriculum in that area.  I am looking forward to this opportunity.    

 

As expected, my savings from the previous year and a half will allow me to have a nice place (knock on wood).  In the meantime, you should see my temporary place right now; three bedrooms on the 14th floor with a great view of the Nakdong River.  Though it is way more space than I need and not in the ideal location (not a hell of a lot to do in this area), it’s a nice transition since it is mostly quiet (I am surely sleep deprived after this crazy summer and a sleepless trans-Pacific flight); it also has a great cross-breeze to keep things cool in a season of humidity. 

 

Anyhow, I am now sitting in my quiet office a week before classes and chaos start.  I have a view of nearby green hills and the smell of rain fresh on the soil coming in through the window.  Shortly, I will be off to get my blood test (the final hurdle for me to jump through to make myself official).  Next time I write here (let’s say, two weeks from now), I will deliver the much-anticipated story of me, kindergarteners and the power of improvisation (and slapstick) in the classroom. 

 

[Note: There will be additional photos added today and in the next week to the album “summer ’08 family photos”—mostly from that crazy final weekend of Ian’s birthday, and the last couple send-offs that I got.  Jen H., Cara, Pam, could you send me your photos from the weekend? As always, anyone can me more so I can post them for other readers.]

It is about that time again that I shove off, piss off, get lost, vanish.  Choose what you will.  In two weeks, your favorite vagabond will be back in the professional setting after three and a half months of visiting you, my friends and family (though I never made it to Ashland or NYC).  I have suffered from strep and laryngitis in recent weeks as a result of conversing, eating and drinking with my people.  I also gained fifteen pounds from a glut of meat and cheese and good beer.  No way would I trade this summer—and its minor drawbacks—for anything.  Routine, kimbap and kimchi will get me back to my Korean self.

 

This is just the way of it, though: vacation is never as relaxing as it should be.  And is always excessive in its vices.  Amidst the surplus of food and spirits, I have reconnected with many important people and strengthened other bonds—most importantly, with my nieces and nephew.  Inevitably, with the lifestyle I choose, others have fallen by the wayside.  However, I made some new and potentially important—not to mention, unexpected—connections.  Having gone down this path of expatriation before, I know better how to keep these relationships close, even at such great distances.

 

Despite the great time I have had tending to these relationships, I find myself looking forward to my upcoming two year stint in the Hermit Kingdom.  I went on a bit of a shopping spree recently to shore up my pile of reading for the next six months (I have no idea how the hell I’m going to get all those books back there).  I have accomplished a good base of progress on the novel, but need the structure of work and far fewer local friends (AKA: distractions) in order to catch up on my reading and writing.  One day, finding this balance will not be such a challenge.  And I won’t have to go half way around the world in order to get the ideal job. 

 

And this will be the ideal job in terms of hours.  16 classroom hours a week.  With that kind of schedule, not only will my teaching effectiveness increase, I will be able to devote more time to the aforementioned reading and writing.  The writing will also include higher frequency (resulting in shorter entries for those readers who are on the go) and more humor (or humour, for you Canucks) unless I am off on some excursion that requires 3000 words.  It has been put upon me—and I gladly accept the challenge—to find the extraordinary in the mundane, making some descriptions that would be accessible to my nephew; this was a request from my brother, so they could both become more involved in what I am doing “ovah theyah.”  I will start with entries every second week and see how it goes. 

 

To remind myself of humility—lest I go too cocksure into this next job—, I will next week recount some comedy from my first job in Korea, nearly two years ago.  Also, I will post a few pictures from other people’s cameras.  If you have any good photos, please send them to me via email in the next few days.  Also, note that comments can be made on the website; feel free to tell me to shut up (though I probably won’t listen) or that I am a hack (though I already know that) or that I am handsome (at least it’s better than being handless).

One week since my first visit to San Jose.  Two weeks since I came home.  Three weeks since I hiked Hallasan.  Four weeks since I left my job.  An eternity since I’ve written.  Two and a half months until I leave again.  Back here in the US and still meeting new people, catching up with people, feeling some slip away just a bit.  The noise that’s created in my head in a time like this is deafening.  Do this, do that, sign that, meet him, meet her.  How to get there?  Restlessness was at least was tempered by a routine of exercise, writing and teaching back in K-town.  In unemployment, the sounds are louder. Nothing but time to listen restively.  What will temper this?

 

The noise that I have before griped about in these annals—the kimchi-mandu lady and the air conditioner guy coming by in the dead of winter—echoed that much more that morning I moved out of the street-level corner apartment back in Anyang.  Perhaps it was just that there was no furniture to absorb the sound.  Or I didn’t have my instant coffee at my side, my own music on and the unfolding story in front of me on the page.  Had I not the shite coffee, eclectic music and the story that I write (which at times has driven me to insanity but most often ecstasy), I could not have dulled the ubiquitous morning calls from the truck-mounted speakers and their blaring sales pitches.  Have I not a way to get through other people’s noise in a day by making a little of making my inner world as small or as large as I want, my sanity would otherwise be sliced up. 

 

For the last two and a half months in K-town, I was hiking on most Saturday mornings, sleeping in the afternoon and getting into a big dinner and a bottle in the evenings, making questionable decisions.  The time in Anyang was running short, the list of friends to see was dwindling at the same time it increased (over there, expats are as often exported as they are imported), I found myself much in the same predicament as now: things to do, people to see, papers to sign.  If only I could spend an unlimited afternoon on top of my favorite hill like I did with Timmy and Trevor down in Busan at the beginning of April; a Gwanak hike was hurried by my middle-aged Korean friend, Ga, as I went with Trevor on his first and second hike to  the top of Gwanak-san.  After teaching was over on April 25^th, after couch surfing for a few days, after a couple university job interviews and a few cheap motels, I headed off to Jeju to hike 1950-meter Halla-san, the tallest in South Korea.

 

I had been to Jeju before and the only goal was that lofty volcanic peak.  Well, that and a little peace and quiet on a midweek hike (weekend hiking in Seoul is no quiet affair, what with mountains right in everyone’s backyard).  The first day, I rented a bike and toured around some coastal farmland and quaint housing with only the sound of the foghorn from the nearby port (and the sounds of jets taking off).  My solo adventure started to take effect as I cordially exchanged some hellos with the natives but mostly tried to keep quiet, a self-imposed moratorium on worry, the fretfulness that frequently manifests itself in heated conversations with myself. 

 

Early the next day, I was at 600 meter trailhead at the foot of the Halla-san.  Calm, having paid a brief visit to the Buddhist temple just down the road, I smiled broadly to myself.  One or two people nearby this alternate to the only other starting point for the long hike ahead, the weather was sunny and warm, the cloud cover on the peak not even a ripple of concern to my consciousness.  I stepped lively but as quietly as I could, making my way up the long but not steep first seven kilometers, coming across caves of such great length that it would be a day in itself to explore the ancient artifacts of the island’s first people.  I kept on, soon the cloud cover dappling my advance as much as the changing foliage; at a certain height, the weather changed and the deciduous giving way to mostly evergreen, but strangely enough back to a mix of the two at a higher elevation.  Further on, still having only encountered a handful of people on my ascent, the volcanic rock more readily exposed, I had maintained the silence, not even inner monologue to distract me from the beauty and silence of this shield volcano.

 

And shield volcanoes typically are not so much steep as they are with great circumference at the base.  Three hours and seven kilometers from where I started, I reached the rest area, about 700 or 750 meters from the peak.  I rested, ate my Hershey’s bar (my only food for this lean hike, not wanting to be weighed down by too much on this minimum six hour hike) and moved on sooner than I’d have liked.  Despite the ghostly clouds whisping over the peaks, the little valley echoed with raucous Koreans at their midday meal.  The peak, I thought, would be much quieter.  I marched the remaining distance slowly as it was the most difficult 1.9 kilometers I can remember hiking.  But the weather and sounds again changed to my advantage.  Although there was not much visibility of surrounding areas, I was now in the clouds, audibly protected from the voices of people, cooled constantly and thoroughly as I carefully picked my way up the rocks and around the patches of snow.  Greeted by crows along the way.  And more people.  Where had they all come from?

 

As I finally reached the peak, weary and soaking, the racket of blood pulsing in my ears gave way to the noise of hundreds of voices.  A few large groups of high schoolers had hiked up the main route and had mobbed the peak in obnoxious impatience for the clouds to clear and provide a view of the volcano’s caldera.  There was nowhere to stand so I, after reaching the peak in just under four hours, used the cloud cover provided and ducked past the fence and made my way about a quarter of the way down into the extinct caldera just in time to hide amongst the pock-marked igneous.  Then, the sun emerged and the wind picked up, the clouds unveiled beneath me the small lake, un-shrouded the rim of the birthplace of this island.  And I had found a place of my own, quiet enough for me to ponder the creation of such a sight, the age of the rock I sat on, the fantasy of walking along the caldera rim or along its bottom.  And my first verse in over a year came to me.

 

An Island’s Creation

 

The lip of the caldera atop this

mountain of people, I escape

voices and my

own.  The clouds clear

and the collective wonder sends

me beyond boundaries into the

ancient one-time island-maker.  Soon

the silent mists return, bringing

with them sounds obscured—far

down the lava pit are sounds

of crows calling, hunting; some creature

drinks from solitary lake—the voices

above me retreat on the

hushing waves of brume, ghostly

now are the sounds.

Around me the swirl—near, far, not

there.

Finally, I am alone with

the sound of lapping water.

 

The clouds did return and the noise above me decreased even more, the crows and other beasts made noises in the caldera that I could only guess at as I listened intently.  Turns out, the top of the mountain must be vacated by 230 or 3 and I was the last visitor off the peak that day.  Shortly thereafter, I met a rarity in Korean culture: a single Korean man, Se-yeon, five years my senior who decided to resist marriage (and many attempts by his mother to match him with incompatibles), dislikes his engineering job and wants to be a horticulturist, growing new types of roses.  He was the most atypical Korean I have met since Jude, confident in what he liked and the decisions he has made.  We conversed, finding similar tastes in music, exchanging phrases in our native languages, agreeing on views of domesticity.  He told me of the Korean superstition about crows, saying that they were a harbinger of death.  There were many on the mountain that day, picking at the trash the teenagers had strewn about on their decent.  On our way down, Se-yeon and I stuffed two plastic shopping bags full of their refuse.  At the base of the hill, eight hours after I had begun on the other side of the mountain, we had a couple beers, talked some more shit and parted ways, me back to downtown Jeju, he to the other side of the island.  My head clear, but belly empty, I took in some much-needed calories with breaded, fried and cheesey pork cutlet, don-kass.  And took in nine hours of uninterrupted sleep.  The crows and teenagers not to be seen.

 

Worn out by that expedition, having seen much of the island before, and overtaken by the restlessness of having to pack, needing to follow-up on my job interviews and hoping to see more people before my departure a few days later, I took a flight home a day early.  Had some dinner and drinks with friends, saw the lights for Buddha’s birthday in downtown Seoul, went on an ill-advised island trip where it rained the whole first day and my restlessness got the best of me and I was on the first ferry off that island (despite the excellent weather) so I could begin my attempt to put my next three and a half months in four bags of various sizes.  Hopped a plane a day later and made it home.

 

I have caught up with a few people, have met new people, wonder if other people will go by the wayside.  In this short time home, I’ve celebrated Mother’s Day with my whole family, gotten to know my niece Lexi a little better, reconnected with Campos, had dinner with Uncle Lyal, Aunt Linda and Cousin Brita, stayed up till dawn more than a 31 year old should, seen my good friend Erik get married, danced for three hours in the blazing valley heat with a pleasant anomaly, escaped to the Sierras with my buddy Jenie to talk all things Korea and her impending departure into military training.  I’ve also seen a ghost from a different half life and am still yet to see my best friend and wonder if there will be enough time to do all the catching up I want to do with others while not neglecting my own project.

 

The heated air in the Central Valley plays with the sounds.  A parking lot sweeper from a mile away sounds as if it is right outside; the hum and horns of freight trains from even further away are larger than the trains themselves.  Crickets chirp through the day.  Dogs bark angrily or playfully.  My slumber is populated by train wrecks, mountain hikes and parents looking for something in the room where I now sleep, where I once grew up.  All of these things I’ve seen before but never experienced them in the same way.  Just as I saw the lightshow of Buddha’s birthday a year ago in my first month in downtown Seoul, or hiked any of those peaks around Anyang or Busan numerous times, just as I went to a Korean baseball game before or went to norae-bang  and sang until sunrise.  All these things I’ve done before.  But I experience them differently the second time around because of the people with whom I experience them.  In their new experiences, my experience becomes new.  Yesterday, my lifelong friend and I drove that drive together.  I’ve driven the vast ancient lakebed and pastureland coming back from the Sierras throughout my life.  Yesterday they were swept by fierce winds and fire.  Today much of the same.  The wind is in my sensitive ears.  The heat upon my burnt skin.  The smoke permeating my nose.  The experience emblazoned on my mind, separating it from all those other times in the receding past.

 

There are times when boredom and apathy creep, times when I can hear nothing but the air conditioner salesman in the middle of winter.  Nothing but time to listen to the nag of necessity.  But, as I have all this time to listen to obligation, I am tempered by listening to my own passions; tempered by listening to the people I will likely leave behind and the people who are never really that far away.  Listening even in those brief relationships, as well as the lasting ones.  I can only hope they are lasting. 

Solitary has often been the mode of this expat.  But so far from home, this lifestyle must be balanced by socializing.  I find, though, that the occasion of good people is few and far between and it is at the times when those people are not around—or have returned to the mainstream back in the homeland—that 10,000 km can seem like 10,000 light years.  When genuine people emerge from the mass of marginal individuals, quick bonds are formed.  It is a type of friendship where looking too far into the future can cause premature sadness and lead one to think, “What’s the point?” and take one into refuge of only books, only booze, only Facebook, only longing for home, only longing for the end of the contract.  As my time nears to leave this country—albeit briefly—and go back to the land of domesticity, the friends I have around me now seem that much more important. 

 

The weather has just turned to spring and the mountain is calling.  The winter was long and bitterly cold and the beckoning of the peaks was muffled with snow.  To be cooped up for months is unnatural for a California boy, but it was the way of it.  And the nature of this country and the people—foreigners and natives alike—can become magnified if no respite can be found outside of the small green soju bottle and downloaded television and pages of writing and reading.  It’s enough to make a recluse out of the most resilient and young-minded person.  With the weather’s recent turn for the better, I came out of hibernation and found myself on the hill the last two weekends.   The natives and foreigners have pleasantly surprised me.  Even after discovering this fact time and again over the last eighteen and a half months, the mountain does something for the spirit that is oft oppressed by what I hesitate to call “necessity.” 

 

Two weekends of clean-air Saturdays after a mid-week rain attracted me to Suri and Morak—both of which I had done before, but I had some new friends with whom I wanted to share those peaks.  This beautiful Korean spring has come along once again.  Last year, I was able to fully enjoy a month of no work and ample mountain hiking in Busan—though that was in a solitary capacity.  The big plans for travel are still in the works—though another year of work needs to be had here —and I am still searching for a back-watcher on the rails across Russia.

 

On Suri two weeks ago with Jackie, Trevor (new to the scene from Ontario Province) and Jed (on the way back to Buffalo the following day).  Jackie and Trevor made the early push to get on the hill and I have had some valley-floor shits and giggles with them since they arrived in early January.  Jed is also a co-worker, but I’ve known him for a while and we’ve been on the hill together before.  I must say that I never really could figure the guy out in work and typical social situations.  Therefore, I kept my distance.  However, his youthful spirit often matched the timing of my own desire to get up on the hill.  And, looking back on the last ten months, I connected with him almost exclusively on the mountain, a place where ideals seem attainable.  At the summit, we met a middle-aged native man named Ga who has done 150 of the 200 most important peaks in South Korea.  With him, we pushed on to an even higher peak with good-humor and good conversation.  After chatting for a bit, he revealed that he was an employee at a university south of here.  Yes, I networked on the summit.  Interview next week for a position. 

 

The mountains here are People Unplugged, the grind of city life, the pretensions of work and nightlife and even ethnicity seem to stay to wallow in the valleys below and the people I encounter or take with me seem to be light and momentarily carefree of all that has passed.  And after we got off the hill, we shared a meal of dwegi-galbi (marinated barbequed pork) around mid-afternoon.  The hike and the company combined to make one of the best days I’ve had here.  And, out of all the great days I’ve had here, eighty percent involve climbing a mountain, gaining a perspective that is difficult to gain unless I’m at the top of a mountain here in this over-mechanized, over-westernized country.  I get a sense of what it might have been like her a hundred years ago and, at the same time, reclaim a sense of newness, vitality that life down in the valleys and offices and expressways and offices can drain away.  Not until I’m on the hill do I realize what’s been stripped from me.

 

The following week, a new crew, this time larger, but still manageable.  (Too many people can cause complications on the dynamics of a hike: pace, hydration, duration.)  Again, Jackie and Trevor joined, but so, too, did another new couple, Meg and Adam from Indiana.  To keep things in balance, Paul MacKay—a veteran like myself—came along.  He brought his sweet camera that has this killer wide angle lens with which he was able to take some great shots.  The pictures look as if there is a disgusting layer of smog in the valley below; however, that was not the case that day.  It was simply early.  A rare blend of restfulness and being on the mountain infused in me an optimism that is difficult to come by.  Lo, the valley cleared over the course of our ascent.  Visibility was excellent.  Said some cordial hellos to some of the natives, had a traditional hiking beverage mah-ko-lee (rice wine) at the top of Morak, and headed down the hill.  Got sandwiches and sat for a meal in the still-dead-grassed park near Beomgye Station.

 

There is just too much to worry about during the week not to take advantage of the Korean spring on the mountain.

If it weren’t for some splendid natural sights to see in Korea, the deficiencies in housekeeping would surely drive me out of the country.  Once or twice in the past, I had a cleaner come into my apartment and clean.  Upon coming home from work, my first impression was that it was clean. My shoes in a neat row, the dishes clean, the stove wiped-down all gave the impression that it was a damn sight better than it was when I left in morning.  But, upon closer examination, I found I could have done better myself.  Books were unmoved for dusting, floors swept instead of scrubbed, grimy windows and corners completely ignored.  Is this what passes for clean here? 

 

There I was in Sokcho for the five day Lunar New Year holiday, looking to get away from the mounting dishes—it’s amazing how quickly two plates and one set of silverware can pile up—and divest myself of pages of fiction that were mounting angrily in my head—angrily because they were ideas only in my head and yet to find their way to the page.  Surely, staying up to the sunrise two times in the last week had something to do with that.  And the impending end of the contract, not eleven weeks away.  And the need to find a new job.  And the need to finish a complete draft of the novel.  While some went skiing, and others went to China on this busiest of all holidays in Asia, a simple seaside-mountain retreat was what I needed.  

 

I checked into for the first night, wanting to check in for two, but unwilling to shell out coin for what could be marginal accommodations.  And they were.  In the last three hotels I have stayed in, I have found a black hair near the top corner of the mattress.  And, upon further inspection, tabletops are gone over once with only a wet cloth, white sheets have shoe soles imprinted on them.  I always say a little bleach goes a long way in giving, if anything, the illusion of cleanliness.  But, I was tired—not to mention, lacking in the ability to express dismay with my 40,000 won room.  So, I dealt with the subtle but disturbing smell of sex-sweat—don’t get me wrong, I like that smell as much as anyone, but only if it’s mine and my lady’s.  I tossed and turned into sleep over an hour later.  I did wake, however, rested.  After I wrote for a couple hours in the room and checked out, I found a café near the water that I had been to on my previous visit.  This place is on the cold side (owing to its large windows all around) and feels the need to play music for me even though I am the only one there and I immediately throw in my earphones.  The proprietor is nice enough and left me be as I wrote.

 

When I was done with the writing, the quality of the fifteen-hundred words and three hours spent hardly produced elation; there is so much shit that one needs to write to get to a piece of truth that it is often difficult to see past the pile of steaming shit produced.  But, even after all these years of writing, I still have to remind myself draft draft draft, sculpt, sketch.  What it takes to move past that is a reminder that, with more coffee and patience, the steaming, formless mass of verbose dung can be made into something better with an eye to optimism.  It is a lesson that for some reason I need to remember—not only in writing and when being housekept in Korea, but also in other seeming social failures and perceived political slights.

 

Having written nothing but garbage, I checked into the Hotel Good Morning, hoping that my last experience a couple months previous was an aberration.  Later, I returned from an outing to find a hair at the head of the bed, a footprint on the sheet and some sort of dried substance with lint coating it in spurted splatter on the sheet underneath.  Now, anyone who’s been here for even a short amount of time knows what “love motels” are for.  But, given the seepage and splatter that occurs in a good romp between the sheets, why don’t the housekeepers keep a better eye on details?  Again, I was hampered by my own apathy in learning the Korean in my time here. 

 

My faith in Korean housekeepers would not be crushed until later in the day.  Since I had already spent half the day writing, I dropped my bag, found the 7 bus across the street from the Express Bus Terminal and took a fifteen minute ride to Soraksan National Park, noticing a storm about a kilometer off the coast.  With the impending snow, the promise of this exploration could either be in peril or in for a serious shot of life.  I forged ahead, eager to salvage something of this day that had so much promise for worthy, uninterrupted creation.   

 

On one two-lane road going to the park’s main entrance, the traffic was quite congested.  So I got out and walked beside the large creek, walking at a faster rate than the bus I was just on.  In addition, I was able to set my own pace, be out in the relative fresh air—there were still the fumes of cars to contend with—and take pictures.  One thing that I took with me on this excursion was a little bit of angst, and you’d think after a year and a half of being here, there are certain things I would learn to deal with, including never leave the house with an idea of discovering personal space; and searching for peace and quiet in a place as beautiful as Soraksan can prove just as difficult.  Despite the late hour, thousands of people still crowded the sidewalks, many of them walking down the hill.  The problem there was that the sidewalks were only one and a half people wide with people walking by twos and threes.  It does not cease to confound me as to this logic and it just seems inconsiderate to my western sensibilities.  But I must keep in mind that the idea of manifest destiny gave Americans a sense of personal space that is much different from that of Koreans, a place that is no larger than Indiana and much of the land uninhabitable due to its mountainous geography.  Nonetheless, I kept my shoulders square to the oncoming traffic after taking a few unacknowledged sidesteps on the slippery ice or deep snow.  Needless to say, a few Koreans were jarred into recognition by my unyielding.  I wonder if the people walking behind me saw my change from semi-courteous to semi-truck and saw justification or blame in my actions.

 

But, those impediments were minor when compared to the increasing beauty around me.  Mountain peaks soared sharply up to six and seven hundred meters at seventy-five degree angles above the Ssangcheon Stream and traditional rooftops in a village looking as if coated by a heavy layer of white frosting;  the stream itself ran slowly around snow-covered rocks; the leafless trees stood naked like a emaciated spine along the white ridges; the deep crags that had received less snow and the dark pines provided contrast to all else that stood dusted with recent snowfall.  As I continued the ascent, the snow was two to three feet deep in parts, discouraging the searching I might have done in search of an area of quiet.

 

Something in me soon gave up on that idea, and it must have been the mountain peaks around me, the peace of a nearby Buddhist temple.  After paying ₩2500 for park entrance, I bought my ₩8000 ticket for the cable car and had an hour until my ride to the top of a seven hundred meter peak.  I came upon a massive Buddha statue that sat about three stories high.  I had seen this on the tourist map, but that didn’t really prepare me for the magnificence of this massive representation of the deity.  I walked on, all that disappointment from earlier in the day all but a memory.  I walked over a few snow-covered bridges and entered a Buddhist temple that was slightly overrun with those not respecting the sanctity of such a place: two crazy agimas having a snow fight or the children making snow angels in an adjoining field did not disturb my docility; as the snow started, I was reminded of the great qualities of snowfall, providing moments of silence and a muted characteristic to the commotion around me. 

 

It is difficult to find stillness in this country—or much of life, if one is a city dweller trying to accomplish a little something in this chaotic world—and I started to conjure up some nether-regions of this park that could be explored given proper time and equipment.  Though I could not be sure which was Daecheongbong in the obscured vistas I had most of the day due to the snowfall, I think that is not a peak often attempted by anyone other than serious hikers at over 1700 meters (second tallest peak next to Hallasan on Jeju Island).  But, I have been disappointed by this line of thinking, seeing women in heels on mountains—granted, lesser mountains—in this country; also, given the beauty of this region, the trails are surely like any other on weekends and holidays: flooded with people.  But, my contract is up in April and I will have decisions to make about what to do before going home.  Hike Mount Halla and Daecheong Peak on weekdays of lesser population or trek the jungles and trails of Thailand. 

 

Many would say Thailand is the obvious choice.  Others would say that if I were to come back and live in Korea for another year, what would there be left to do?  But, upon reaching the top of the cable car, I found a peace in these mountains despite the swarms of people going up and down the narrow and icy pathway.  The snowfall became heavy and I found an area with fewer people (due to icy conditions on the sheer rock at the peak) and I just stood for an hour or so watching people attempt to get up or down the icy incline.  Mostly, though, I looked at the valleys and peaks around me as they came in and out of focus through the cloud cover, snow and mist.  Again, I found the moments of stillness in the silent spectacle of snowfall.

 

Though I think I descended a few moments before the sun peaked through for a final appearance, my disappointment was short-lived, having been amongst all that splendor for a few hours.  In an empty restaurant—the park was closing soon—I got myself some pa-jan (squid-onion pancake) at ₩10,000.  This is well worth the relatively hefty price; not only is it one of my favorite dishes here, but, fresh off the cold mountain, it provided warmth for my body and satiation for my empty belly.  I took the bus down and got off a little early, seeing that the Daepo Sushi Town was in full swing for the dinner hour.  Unfortunately, I was full up and could not partake in my next favorite food—though, it must be said that Korean sushi is of different fish altogether and served much like any other meat dish here: with plenty of koch’ujang (red pepper sauce/paste), raw garlic and red-leaf lettuce in which you wrap all the ingredients.  The place was mobbed and the stalls were many, as people gathered not only to sup but also to watch the show of the agimas scooping up live fish of every sort, slicing head from body.  As both these parts moved independently, the women would divest the body of guts, skin and scales with precision knife-work you would not want to meet in a back alley.

 

And on a dark road I found myself as the sushi town gave way to a pathway along the shoreline.  Traversed only by the occasional car and its headlights, the road was quiet.  So, instead of trying to find the bus, I walked the two kilometers back to the Hotel Good Morning to call it a night.  Even though my uncleanly ₩60,000 hotel room had paper-thin walls that allowed the drunken laughter of men and wild racket of children to seep in, I closed my eyes and recalled the snowy mountain. The shelter that houses my mind, body and soul had been sufficiently restored and I fell to restful sleep.