Saturday meeting

Long story short: I met the older couple on Saturday and ended up spending around two-and-a-half hours with them, not the single hour I'd planned. The late-70s grandma turned out not to be as thoroughly evil as I'd feared; her husband, 82 or 83, turned out not to be quite as henpecked as I'd thought, but at several moments during our time together, he repeated what became a refrain: "She's the boss!" He obviously knew his role in the relationship, and she wore the pants.*

My day began very early. I'd been itching all night and unable to sleep, so I got out of bed at 2:45 and was out the door of the Saejae Park Motel by 3:05 a.m. It was around a kilometer to the bottom of Joryeong-san, the local mountain, then a 5-kilometer walk up the lone road to go over the mountain. The very top of the trail is the site called Ihwaryeong, but Ihwaryeong isn't the actual summit: there are steep and rocky hiking trails to take you to the top. I have no intention of ever trying any of them, especially after my stroke.

I arrived at Ihwaryeong at 4:55 a.m., meaning my average walking speed was around 3.2 kph. With my weak heart, and with a 5K uphill being a bit of a strain, I was careful to stop frequently so as not to collapse and die on the path. I made it to the top feeling a bit winded, not to mention ashamed that I couldn't walk at a more vigorous pace, but during those pre-dawn hours, it was just me on the road, plus a few creepily screechy forest denizens, one of which sounded as if it had just stepped out of a horror movie. (Luckily, that one's screeches faded away, indicating that it wasn't coming anywhere near me.) As I'd mentioned in my previous post, the road's surface was occasionally uneven, populated with odd bumps and dips that almost caused me to trip a few times.

M had said that she and her hubby usually liked to wake up at 3 a.m. and be out the door soon after, so that was another reason for me to start early: I wanted to beat them to the top. Part of the reason for this was that I wanted them to see that I was right about how we'd be coming up opposite sides of the mountain—she and her husband G up the eastern flank, and yours truly up the western flank.** I texted the couple a bit after 5 a.m. to say I was already at the top and to confirm that they were approaching from Mungyeong Arirang Hotel. They said they'd be starting soon, around 5:45. M joked about my earliness: "The early bird catches the worm!" So I had plenty of time to rest and wait.

The mountain air was cool bordering on cold, but I had my windbreaker on and was content to look out at the valley below. Ihwaryeong gives you a valley view on either side of the tunnel/arch structure that defines it; whether you're on the Gyeongsang side or the Goesan side, you can look down at a valley and see houses, farmland, and a freeway that's active even during the ungodliest of hours in the early morning (which is one reason why it's never completely dark in Korea). I was facing east, toward the Gyeongsang side.

Time passed, and as the sun rose, other people started to appear: random bikers and drivers, some making dramatic, shouty noises as they huffed and puffed their way to the top of the rise after 5 kilometers of pedaling. A furtive couple, wanting to see the mountain's summit, slipped through a fence's swinging gate and started climbing. A biker near me, thinking I was Korean, asked in Korean whether what they were doing was legal. I told him I had no idea. I didn't mention that the swinging gate had signs on it that probably talked about the legality of passing beyond the fence. (I later passed another such gate and read the sign, which didn't say it was illegal to enter—just to be kind to nature.)

One old man carrying some tools and a piece of wood walked past me as I was staring eastward. He stopped when he was about 40-50 meters away, plopped down, and began the long process of whittling the wood, slowly and carefully. He occasionally looked over at me and might have thought I was staring at him, but I was actually looking over to my right and past him since that's where the couple would be approaching from; this guy was simply in my line of sight. At another point, I heard an energetic clippity-clop, and a fawn skipped and skittered past me, awkward on man-made surfaces, and comically assessing its chances of jumping over the fence that kept the unmindful from tumbling over into the valley. It ran over the asphalt, then over the wooden deck/boardwalk where I was sitting, then, following the fence line, it ran down the mountain road and out of sight. I wondered whether the older couple would see the same fawn, but more realistically, I realized the animal would most likely make a break for the woods the instant the fence was no longer in its way.

It was tempting to dip into my supplies to drink some water and eat some snacks, but since I hadn't pooped that morning, I was terrified that eating or drinking anything would give me the sudden urge to go to the bathroom, so I abstained. I had left my water bottles out in the cool morning, but as the sun rose, I began to worry about how the sun's rays might pass through the bottles and be subject to a lensing effect, maybe burning a hole in the wooden deck, so I placed all the bottles behind my small backpack to shield them from the sun, keeping them both cool and lens-effect-free.

I got a text from M a little after 8 a.m. saying that she and her hubby were 1 kilometer out. I'd expected them both to be much faster and more vigorous than I was: their starting hotel was about 10K from where I was sitting, so assuming a 5-kph pace, they ought to have arrived within two hours, i.e., about 7:45 a.m. M had bragged about how she and her husband had walked all over the world, including an 800-mile (not kilometer) "mission walk" done in 50 days (16 miles/day is about 26 km/day, which is my average pace when I do my own cross-country walks) over harsher terrain than Korea offers. But the couple was as slow as I was. M had indeed mentioned that they both had back problems, so instead of wearing backpacks, they used a stroller, which they pushed instead of hooking it up to themselves with a harness.

Around 8:20 a.m., they appeared, waving. They seemed friendly enough and said hello. We both said we were glad to meet, and I shook their hands, Amurrican-style. G, the husband, gave me a huge grin and said, "God bless you!" in thanks for taking the time to meet the couple. M took over most of the ensuing conversation, partly in Korean and partly in English. Her English struck me as pretty fluent, but a little less fluent than my mother's. G, for his part, spoke with an Old Country accent that sounded a bit New Yawk-inflected.

We went through the tunnel to the other side since the plan was to descend back down toward Yeonpoong-myeon, after which my intention was to part company with the couple, calling a cab to pick me up while M and G walked on to their next hotel, the Red Clay Pension, People of the Soil (the pension's name in Korean was indeed that stilted: 황토펜션 흙의 사람들, which has to be one of the most pretentious-sounding pension names I've ever heard). But first things first: the couple was collecting stamps in their official passbook, so they went straight to the phone-booth-shaped certification center to collect their stamp. M described this as being like that Mario game where you collect coins (I'm guessing that's most or all of the Mario games). We then sat down to rest and talk. G turned about to be from Sicily originally, but he had lived all over the States, with a lot of time spent in places like New York and Chicago, which may have been what I was hearing in his accent. M was originally from Busan but had lived in the States for decades. I didn't ask, but I'm guessing she was pretty plugged into her local Komerican community, which is why her Korean didn't seem to have suffered much if any deterioration (not that I'm in a real position to judge). She and G both now live in San Diego.

G wandered off and found an older Canadian couple who were biking the Four Rivers trail. They were in their 60s, and the wife was a nutritionist, so she and G talked about things like diabetes and Crohn's disease and weird, predatory proteins that most doctors don't scan for. Not long after that, the Canadians went on their way, and we packed up and started down the western flank of Joryeong-san toward Yeonpoong-myeon.*** M and G had developed a system with their stroller: every mile (they still thought in miles), they would switch. So I'd walk and talk with the person who wasn't pushing the stroller, and the stroller person would comfortably lag behind. In this way, we all conversed as we went down the hill.

G turned out to be pre-diabetic. He also had Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel condition, or as G put it, "If you eat the wrong thing, you bleed out your rectum." From his wife, I learned that G can't take spicy foods, and he still can't eat with chopsticks, nor can he speak a lick of Korean. I don't hold that last against him since he's only in Korea as a tourist, but as I told him, I have an attitude problem about the furriners who choose to live and work in Korea without bothering to at least learn some of the language and not just a few pidgin phrases. It turns out that M is G's third wife—"Third time's a charm!" Both spouses used to be ultra-marathoners, and as they aged, they switched to distance walking to stay healthy. M told me the sad story of her Korean mom, who died of complications from diabetes. The final two years of her mother's life were spent blind and in bed, doing nothing. "Pathetic," M commented. I had a Grim Reaper moment as I saw the echo of a possible future for me, in which a skeleton leaned close and whispered, Pathetic. M said she kept doing these walks so as not to end up like her mother.

Being the boss, M declared that we should eat lunch in town (something I had initially suggested before I realized we'd all be meeting so early in the morning). By the time we reached the bottom of the mountain, it was a bit after 10 a.m., so it was possible that a restaurant might be open for the neurotically early lunch/brunch crowd. I told M about the restaurant I always went to, but I also said there were plenty of other eateries in that small town, so we didn't have to go to my go-to spot. M said she was fine with my resto, and her hubby agreed. I worried that the menu might not have any non-spicy food, but we adopted a wait-and-see attitude.

The resto I had in mind was located on the second floor of the building it was in, so we had to figure out how to get the stroller up the stairs. I lifted the stroller upstairs with G while M took off some bags to make the stroller lighter. We parked our stuff by the resto's front door and went in. The menu turned out to be varied enough that G would have some non-spicy options. G also had a bottle of olive oil that he took with him to add to rice: the idea was for the oil to coat the rice, go down easy, and protect his Crohn's-vulnerable innards from any irritations. M and I, meanwhile, would have no trouble eating like normal Korean people. I got a soondubu-jjigae (soft-tofu stew) for myself; M got a doenjang-jiggae (fermented bean-paste stew—stinky but delicious), and we all got enough duck meat and sides for three people. It turned out to be a great meal, with some of the sides being surprisingly good, and even I was stuffed. (I also wasn't worried about needing to go to the bathroom because a restroom was right next to the resto's front door. I ended up only taking a piss after the meal was over.)

G told me a lot about Sicily. There's a local Sicilian dialect, but Sicilians aren't like the Québecois: they aren't agitating for independence. There's also, apparently, a large Greek population in Sicily, where the great Archimedes had resided. Sicily is subject to the same forces of globalization as everywhere else, and the food and culture both reflect this pluralism. The Sicilian dialect is, these days, considered a national treasure, and measures have been taken to make sure it's taught in schools. I mentioned to G that this sounded a bit like how they're trying to preserve Irish—Gaelic—in Ireland.

I did try to pay for lunch since I'd invited everyone there, but G was faster and had been waiting for the moment I got that cash-register look in my eye. He sprang out of his chair, spry for a man in his early 80s, and I gave up without a fight as he paid.

After that, we walked the single kilometer back to the rotary where I would call for a cab. M asked me when I'd visit the couple in San Diego. I chuckled noncommitally, and she flared up with a "No, I'm serious!" There was some desultory talk after that, and we finally parted ways. M was a typically pushy Korean grandma, but she wasn't quite as grating as I'd thought she might me. Her husband seemed to be the happy-go-lucky, roll-with-it type who understood and accepted his place in the cosmos, and I found myself a little envious that they had found each other, and that they had such intense interests in common—the outdoors, distance running, distance walking, travel, etc. G had mentioned a trip he and M had taken to Sicily, and how they'd considered buying a house there, and I recall that as my one fart-in-a-church moment: these were people with money to casually throw around if they were considering a house in Sicily. Then again, they were both of retirement age, and what do I care how they spend their money? The resentment passed.

I'm supposed to meet this couple again when they finish their walk and are back in Seoul. M has a Korean friend with whom she and G stayed before they trained down to Busan to start their walk. They'll be staying with that friend again at the end, and I think they're going to invite me to meet them at the friend's house. I think that's when I'm supposed to bring my Moroccan-inspired chicken dish (which isn't spicy at all, but it is rather spice-forward). Do I want to meet this couple again? I'm hesitating, but I don't think a second meeting would be too painful. It'd be only for a short while. M says she'd bought me a pair of walking shoes. She'd also mentioned being interested in buying a set of my walk tees—two mediums for her and her husband. I told her I could make a bespoke design just for her and G, but she said she specifically wanted my tees. So there we go.

Anyway, on to the short photo essay:

a shot of the crescent moon as I walked up Joryeong-san's flank, 4:00 a.m.

Dawn, 4:57 a.m. Facing east. But the sun would take some time to peek over the mountains.

I sent this pic to G and M so they'd know where I was sitting and waiting for them.

5:05 a.m., a sign showing that this path is a sister trail with the Camino de Santiago. The scallop is a symbol of the Camino. The nine radiating lines represent the nine different Caminos. I only just noticed this sign despite having passed this way many times.

later in the morning, 5:13 a.m., having just removed my bandanna

The pic I took and texted to the taxi driver who had picked me up at Goesan Bus Terminal the day before.

G and M, after our walk down the mountain and just before we got our lunch and chowed down.

A gravesite in Yeonpoong-myeon. The one on the left is for a self-sacrificing patriot.

We saw the above graves as we headed out of town to the place where we would part. I hope that's not an omen. Switching gears: the town of Yeonpoong-myeon is growing. Along with the new set of condos, there's a huge admin center done up in classical Korean architecture—the old-school roofing tiles, the retro wooden exterior, everything. I guess the region is doing well, economically speaking. I'm glad somebody's doing well after the pandemic.

It took a while for the cab to arrive and take me back to Goesan Bus Terminal. I got a bit sunburned while I waited. Spring is rapidly turning into summer, and May is the month when that happens. Part of me is glad to have gotten Saturday over with, but another part of me thinks this couple wasn't all that bad. Will I ever make it to San Diego? No. Never. But will I feed this couple a Moroccan-inspired lunch in a couple weeks? Probably. We'll see.

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*My own parents weren't much different, but there were times when Mom would complain about Dad's unassertiveness and passivity, loudly wondering why, in certain situations, he didn't "stand up like a man"—a common refrain from my childhood and through my young adulthood. When I was much younger, I resented Mom for seeming to pick on Dad, but as I got older, I began to realize she was on to something. Dad proved to be a needy guy who had to have a woman by his side to give him both a backbone and a moral compass. This is probably why he latched on to another woman right after Mom died: he was utterly at sea without Mom, and after the incompetence and indecisiveness I saw during Mom's brain cancer, he wasn't getting any sympathy or support from me. I confess I was pretty disgusted with my father. He was and is a weak man, and I'm terrified of turning into him.

**So M's obnoxious "No, no, no"s during our phone conversation were the result of her having found a different "Saejae Park Motel" on the Mungyeong side of the mountain, which is why she kept rudely insisting, over the phone, that she and her husband might actually meet me as we were going up the mountain. This was an honest mistake on her part; it made her rude behavior somewhat more explicable, but I'm still irritated by how she acted as if she knew better than I did about what was what.

***At this point, I mentioned that we were going back down toward Yeonpoong-myeon and the Saejae Park motel where I had stayed the night. When M once again tried to insist that the Saejae Park was back the way she'd come, I cut her off and said, "No, Saejae Park is this way. Maybe you're talking about a different motel." She didn't argue after that, and I had a moment of grim satisfaction.