Acupuncture??? and Seoraksan!

Hello all! My, my, it has been quite a while. After a few requests of an update, this is what I've come up with.

Subheadings for your perusal ease: 1. Funny anecdotes, 2. Acupuncture, 3. The Adventures of Seoraksan

1. Funny anecdotes:
Creepy old drunks exist in Korea too!
So, being in Korea automatically elevates Americans to some sort of freak celebrity status. People stare at my light skin and light eyes constantly, everywhere I go. This of course is exacerbated when a bunch of Westerners are in a bar. I was in Cheongju a couple of weekends ago with some friends and we went out to a bar where there were darts, foosball and general diversionary indulgences. Somehow we managed to attract the attention of some sufficiently sauced old Korean men at our highly spirited foosball game. Now, I'll just come out and say it: I'm terrible at foosball and I never claim to be otherwise. However, the powers governing our merry activities graced me with some baffling foosball-savvy skills, but just enough to keep the game interesting. Eventually, it was more than evident that anything good I was doing was an arrant accident, which in turn, caused one of the aforementioned inebriated old Korean men to edge me off the table. I must also point out that I'm pretty sure the only word he knew in English was "Hey!" So, berated by waves of "Hey!" I ceded my place on the table and faded into the background to relocate with friends at another table... Only to find that 3 minutes later he.. surprise! had found us again at our new table in the bar. Unable to shake this cheeky bozo, we deferred to our Korean friend to tell him to leave us in peace. When this didn't work, he started yelling "Hey! Hey! Hey!" at me and emphatically pointing at random things in the bar. Despite repeated efforts to distract him away from us, we ended up just running away with an old man screaming "Hey! Hey!" at our trail of dust leading away from the bar. Good riddance.

This next story comes from one of my juniors' classes and it has to do with my 남자친구 or boyfriend. In one of our classes we were reading a persuasive paragraph about why kids in school should read Johnny Tremain. This life-changing paragraph was accompanied by a picture of Paul Revere riding a horse through town. This, clearly, screams Napoleon, or it does to an 11-year-old Korean boy.

"Teacher! Napoleon! He is your boyfriend!"

To which I responded, "Eddie, first of all, that is NOT even close to being Napoleon. You have the wrong time period and wrong country. Both forgiveable mistakes since you've probably never even had a history class. Secondly, Napoleon is dead, it is impossible for him to be my boyfriend."

"Teacher, it is ok that you don't have boyfriend. You are inexhaustible* romantic; you will find someone someday."

.... Thanks for the gems of wisdom Eddie. Everyone close their books. Pop quiz.

2. Acupuncture???

First off, I have decided to put my body through hell and train for a marathon this coming October so naturally I've been doing a good amount of running a few times a week. A few weekends ago, my foot started to bother me and it was around the arch of my left foot, which made me favor my right leg quite a bit. My director at school noticed that I was swagging around and suggested "traditional Korean medicine." And conveniently, we have a "traditional Korean medicine" clinic on the fifth floor of our building. Yahoo for me. So I'm thinking to myself, there has to be some semblance of "traditional Korean medicine" to "proven, scientific, legitmate medicine" and they're not going to kill me... right? so, why not?

So I head up in the elevator with my Director with me to translate and I'm led to a little bed made of heated, steaming tiles. They make me lie down and "relax." Before you know it, I've got needles in my foot, shin, right hand and head.

Now, it was all pretty tolerable.. except for the needles in my foot. (Sidebar: do you know why you're so ticklish on your feet? It's because there are about 17 bajillion nerve endings down there. End sidebar.) Can you imagine needles in your body? Stomach, back, thigh.. perchance, maybe, all right, perhaps, okay. Now, needles where you have approximately 17 bajillon nerve endings?!?!?!

To which I replied, "Expletive**! That expletive hurts!"

Here comes the comic twist: I actually found it pretty relaxing and therapeutic. I have no idea if it actually helps or whatever, but it was dirt cheap with my health insurance so I went back a few times. No big deal.

3. Seoraksan!

OK, here comes the fun part. Drumroll please: ..................... ANOTHER HIKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Before you stop reading, please advise: This one was no run-of-the-mill hike. Normally, it's pretty formulaic; ie., base of the mountain, find the path, hike, pictures at the top, and back down the way we came. go home. yahoo for meg. To this I heartily scoff, "Child's play! Couch change! Candy from babies!" You get the idea.

So, on the fly, Phil, Lucci and I decided to hike up 설악산 (Seoraksan). We made this decision Friday night. By Saturday morning at 7am we were on our way to the bus station to hop a 5 and a half hour bus ride to a town where we'd take another bus to another town where we'd stay the night in a minbok where we played hours of gin rummy where Meg was the sole contender for third place. I'm getting off track.

Anyway, we got the bus out of Seoul, no problem. But there was oodles of traffic to fight through and we made it to 양양 (Yangyang) at around noon-ish. We stopped for some lunch and then caught a bus to 오색 (Osaek), the town at the base of Seorak where we'd be starting from. The plan was to hike up Saturday, and stay the night at the shelter at the top of the mountain and then hike down the other side of it on Sunday. However, when we got there, there wasn't enough daylight to be able to finish the first leg of the hike that night. What was the backup plan? I'll tell you, eager reader: Find a minbok in Osaek, sleep for 2 hours, get up at 2AM and do the entire hike on Sunday.

buuhhh.... what?

It seemed like an epic plan doomed to epic failure, which for some epic reason was destined for success. That doesn't make any sense. I know.

The timeline is as follows:

1:47 AM- awake from our slumber, arise from our sleep, the new day is NOT yet dawning, and no one was weeping. (if anyone understands that, I'll give you a cookie.)

2:15 AM- leave minbok with eyes barely open

2:15-2:45 AM- wander around in the dark with tiny, but powerful, flashlights trying to find the entrance of the park

2:53 AM- commenceth the hike of death with about 50 of our closest Korean friends. Apparently we were not the only ones with the bright idea of getting to the peak to see the sun rise.

2:54 AM - Phil and Lucci charge ahead in lieu of being weighed down by the womenfolk. This actually turned out pretty well for me because I decided to keep pace with a nice man and his girlfriend for the rest of the way. We went pretty slowly but didn't take any breaks, save one where the woman gave me about a bottle and a half of 막걸리 (Makkeoli) which is an alcoholic beverage that hikers like to drink. It's not very strong and actually tastes pretty good. It's rude to refuse something that's offered, so I merrily accepted.

4:00 AM - The man I was hiking with explained to me that he was hiking slowly because he had injured his knees and ankles while golfing and politely inquired, "Why are YOU hiking slowly?" I had no response.

4:30 AM - He theorized that when I was young I got very sick and because of this sickness I had a smaller than normal heart, and that this is why I was hiking slowly. (nervous laugh/doubtful gaze...)

6:00AM - I reached the top! I found Lucci and Phil almost alive at the shelter at the top; ate some tuna and rice, rested for about a half hour... and then began the descent.

Now, the rest of the day was actually very pleasant and scenic. The 5km ascent was pretty steep, which is why it was so hard for me. However the 8km descent was just lovely. The beginning of it was almost straight down but before very long we were following waterfalls through a gorge the rest of the way down. I was dead tired, but I managed to take some pretty good photos and a video. You'll notice from the pictures that it looks as though someone doused us with buckets of water. We'll just pretend that's the explanation.

The way home was a bit of a blur; I was not even close to using coherent thoughts, speech or logic. It's two days later and I'm still in a haze. Nonetheless, let it be known that I, Meg Paladino, conquered Seoraksan, crippled by a smaller than normal heart by a debilitating childhood disease and plagued by Korean alcohol! Against all odds, I took some damn good pictures!