Well, day two of Chusok and it was an early start. My uncle came in and woke me up at 6:30 this morning so that we could go for a hike. He took me all around the Singori, up through the mountains and to all the different growing fields. He mentioned to me that he hadn’t walked this particular trail in almost twenty years. We hiked for about an hour or so before coming back home to eat breakfast. My uncle and his brother wanted to take me and family to a famous mountain called Ma-ee San. (translated: Horse’s Ears). The fascinating thing about this particular pair of mountain is that they’re actually just two extremely large rocks. Each “ear”
or mountain (one’s a boy and the other’s a girl, of course) is simply a large stone. We went up to the mountain, which my aunt tells me is the mystic capital of Korea (I figure it’s probably like Sedona, AZ). There’s a house / temple dedicated to this supposed flying man who nobody knows whether or not ever died. (hmmm, I’ll side with the fact that he doesn’t fly and is long dead). A interteresting thing though, is an oak tree that resides next to his shrine, the icecicle that form on the tree during the winter actually form upward?! (hmmmm).
After about a two hour hike to the vertical base, we found out that the rock climbing trail was under renovation until 2013, we’ll try back in a few years. On the way down we stopped by one of several restaurants and had pork ribs and some traditional Korean dishes, specifically, rice and side dishes served in a very hot stone bowl. Note, the port ribs are that of piglets, I don’t know the significance, but I’m told it tastes better? I also experienced “makorie?” it’s a type of korean liquor that has fine grains of rice still in it. Tastes like bland soju to me, but my aunt says it’s good for you.




On that note, it seems that everything that tastes foul in Korea, is “good for you.” While we were walking up, this lady offered us a free sample of some drink. I can best describe it as tasting like fermented bean juice. (It tastes just like it sounds). Of course I had to finish it because “it’s good for me.” Ginseng flavored candy? Yup, it’s good for you too! Hmmmm... Well we made it home okay, I met my uncle’s oldest sister, her husband, and her son and daughter. My uncle tells me that his sister’s daughter (my cousin) studies close to Yonsei and that she’s learning German and is also interested in learning English. He asked if I would be interested in meeting up with her every other week or so to chat with her so I can teach her English and she can teach me Korean? Sounds like a deal... Well until next time!