The Climb...

As usual my day began about fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. I was told last night that we would have a birthday breakfast for my 73 year old Korean grandfather and then we would leave to hike Halla Mountain at 8 am. We had breakfast at 7:15am, and afterwards my father handed me a pair of thick flourescent purple knee highs that I was supposed to wear. As I put them on he was saying something to me in Korean and my host sister looked over and said, "He says you must put your pants under the socks." So I tucked my pants into the bright purple acrylic knee highs and wanted to ask why I was the only one wearing them; however, I decided to be the alien foreigner that I am and just go for it. It wasn't until I tried to put my hiking shoes on that I changed my mind; they were way too snug and I knew I'd get blisters. I decided that being uncomfortable on a 7 hr. hike was too big a price to pay for the sake of being flexible and took them off, asking my host sister to relay that fact to my host father. When we got to the base of Halla Mountain I saw that wearing pants tucked into bright colored knee highs was definitely a trend; however, a trend that only seemed to be true for men who were over fifty, making it hard to regret my decision to take them off. The base of the mountain was swarming with people, including some of my students from school. Of course, I can never recognize my students when they're not wearing their uniforms, because I teach 700 of them weekly, but I know it's a student when a teenage Korean girl stops dead in her tracks, wide-eyed and gasps at the sight of me (this happened again at the restaurant; it's as though they cannot believe that I actually live and breathe outside of school.) I still had no idea what to expect, but it turned out that the hike was very long in distance, even by Korean standards, but gradual in incline. It was really a wonderful hike. It was about 12 kilometers to the summit which was 1900 meters high (the tallest mountain in South Korea) and then another 9 kilometers to go down the backside. The hike would've taken about 6 hours, because my host dad and I were hiking pretty fast, but my host cousin was having a hard time, so we waited often and slowed down the pace at times. In the end we were hiking for 7.5 hours. It was a beautiful day and the mountain was covered with maple trees and their autumn leaves were changing colors! When we finally got down the mountain, my host mother picked us up and we went to a great Kalbi dinner with another couple who are good friends of theirs. In the car on the way to the Kalbi restaurant I was asked if I would do the same hike in two weeks with my host mother. I said "of course" which to me signified that I had truly enjoyed the hike, because I was exhausted when she asked. For those of you who don't know, Kalbi is pork that is grilled at your table; you eat it in small pieces that you take from the grill with your chopsticks, wrap in a piece of lettuce, add some hot soybean paste and eat. It was really delicious. We had some mekju and noodles as well (mekju is beer). Halfway through the meal the friend and his wife were talking in Korean when they suddenly nudged me. I just smiled, because that's what I do in those situations, but then the wife took out her cell phone, after speaking on it for a minute she told me it was her younger brother, and hands me the phone. I put it to my ear, and the conversation that ensued went something like this:
"Hello, nice to meet you," Man's voice on the other end of the cell phone
"Hello, it's nice to meet you too," I say.
"You must recycle; they are saying that you must take paper, plastic and bottles and reuse them."
"I must recycle?" My confused voice.
"Yes, you must recycle; take paper, plastic and bottles and reuse them."
"O.K. I will." My response after making a snap decision NOT to ask for clarification on why we were having this conversation in the first place.
"O.K., goodbye."
"Goodbye."

I was so totally confused, but after the phone conversation I realized exactly why they had called the woman's younger brother; they wanted to introduce us. When I got off the husband said: "Her younger brother (pointing to his wife). He single. He teacher in elementary school. He single." Clearly they had wanted to call and ask him how to translate something as an excuse to have him talk to me, but what is unclear in my mind is why they decided to ask him how to translate the word "recycle". The only thing I can think of is that the empty mekju bottles on the table reminded them of recycling. I was very gracious about it, saying that I have a boyfriend in Migook (the United States). This of course was not what they wanted to hear, so they persisted until my host mother saved me and said it was time to go. All in all the hike was great and I'm really excited to go again!