I've been to Korea.

5:45am comes too late when you can't fall asleep. And yet I still managed to hop out of bed and eat running on only about two solid hours of sleep.

Why on earth would I wake up at 5:45 on a Sunday? To climb a rock of course.

Cleo and I went and met one of Cleo's students, Judy, at the train station at 6:30am. These Koreans like to get a head start on the world. We rode the subway for about an hour to a place called Dobong Mountain. Which is famous, by the way.

Then we walked through the preday fog to the trail leading to the base of the peak and proceeded to hike up a million stairs for about an hour and a half. I am not talking a leisure walk through the woods. This is hard core, up a steep hill for miles. Oh did I mention that Koreans like to be prepared? So we were all carrying backpacks. Mine had my lunch in it, and then an extra pair of shoes Judy had brought me. Cleo ended up taking a pack that was supposed to be mine, that they so kindly packed for me. I am not even sure what was in it. I can hike, don't get me wrong. I can even climb a lot of stairs if I have to. But I don't like doing it super fast, and definitely not with a backpack full of hiking boots on my back.

But anyway... back to my story. We hiked up this trail for a good long while. Then, just as I thought I might actually die from drowning in my own sweat, we were at the base of the summit.

We geared up to take on the rock face. I got hooked up with a really nice harness and some climbing shoes and a helmet and then we climbed a small rock to wait for our fearless leader man to climb the first section. We were doing something I have never done before. Where you climb up... then the next person climbs up and the first person belays them and then so on.... until everyone is up, then you all come down. It's like a giant team sport. Anyway as he was climbing I saw a hawk, perched way up above him, just kind of watching the whole thing. Then suddenly two hawks started screaming and diving at him as he was climbing. Apparently he was getting a little too close to their nest. So he backed up and tried a different route. Wouldn't you know but another set of hawks started attacking him. Full force. They dove and screamed and hit him with their bodies. We could hear the sound of them colliding with his helmet. So he backed down again. He told us after he got down that he could see the nest right beside him and that it had a baby bird in it. I guess they had good reason to scream at him.

Clearly we were not going to be climbing at this particular location so we set off back to find a different one. We went back a different way that involved climbing down a rope and a lot of sliding.

We finally got to a place where we could climb and started the process all over again. I was second last to climb. So I got to watch how everyone else did it. And then it was my turn! I scampered up the first section, and then got worn out and confused for a little while, did some flailing around, used my head and figured it all out and made it to the top. With almost all my skin. So then I clipped in at the top and waited while the last person came up. Then climbed up the second section. It was much more challenging. I had to wedge my foot in a crack, then put my hands in the same crack to form a kind of triangle with my body. Then using gravity somehow, crawl up the crack, sideways. Yes. It is confusing to do, let alone explain. Anyway I figured it out and it wasn't as hard as I had thought.

Then we came down. Ate some fantastic food and took a break. I thought I was done, but the men had other ideas. They thought we should climb MORE. So I went one more time. It was a crazy course. I went straight up this big flat thing. I am not even sure how I did it. A lot of wall hugging and shimmying. I will be oh so sore tomorrow. Good thing there is now school.

The trek down was much easier and we got back to the bottom in good shape. Literally, my thighs and butt felt like they were on fire. I wiped out once on the trail going down and almost slid right over the edge of the path. But stopped and grabbed the rail before that happened. That would have been exciting.

And so that was my epic adventure. Judy said, "You haven't really been to Korea unless you climbed Dobong mountain." So now I guess I can say I was in Korea. Wheee!

the end

Michelle