Weekends with Apa

Being so close to Isaac's father is the wonderful thing about living in South Korea. It takes about 2.5 hours to travel from our home to his on public transport, making weekend outings together totally feasible and comfortable.

We are already establishing a sort of routine too - eat some incredibly tasty food together (no surprise there) and go for a walk in a mountain park.

Last time we ate lunch at a shabeushabeu restaurant - that's Vietnamese summer rolls. It's basically all sorts of goodies wrapped up in rice paper, and you get to cook and assemble them yourself.

Sadly I took this picture before the gigantic plate of assorted meats arrived, but there's still plenty to see. That's a grill in the middle of the table, with a soup simmering in its center. The reddish liquid is used to dip the circular rice paper in to make it chewy and ready to roll. We had many types of meat to taste: pig, cow, duck and chicken.

Here are some of the meats cooking. They gave us an insane amount of meat, I wish I had a picture to share of the ridiculous portions!

So dip the rice paper in the hot water and lay it on your plate. Pile on some food, roll it into a burrito shape and eat it up! I especially love the herb, Thai basil, which tastes like licorice candy in the best way.

With our bellies bulging, we were ready to stretch our legs at Gyeryongsan Park. This lovely park has paved lower trails for casual strolls, as well as higher, more remote foot trails for the dedicated. It is also home to a couple of Buddhist temples that are over 1000 years old. It's interesting living somewhere with such a long history. It's the first time I have lived in such a place, and having such a deep connection between the people and land seems like a powerful thing. I could go on about that thought for quite a while. For our weekend strolls though, this aged land rich in history makes for some lovely scenery and a sacred escape from city life.

Apa balancing and walking on the path's thin borderline. Notice that tree - a crepe myrtle - reaching over the building on the right.

One popular thing to do in parks like this is to build a mini cairn. It's an old Buddhist practice, but for us common folk it's kind of like throwing a penny into a fountain. Taking small rocks, you balance them on top of one another and make a wish. We built one together and Apa made the wish - that we will give him a grandson soon.

As a casual but curious observer, the mountains of South Korea remind me very much of the Appalachian mountains we have back home. As far as mountains go, they seem old - time has worn away their high, jagged tips, leaving behind gentle curved profiles that seem more inviting than treacherous.

And I see familiar faces among the plants, types that are invasive and nuisances back in South Carolina. Mimosas and kudzu blend in here, their original home. Crepe myrtles grow to be glorious ancient trees, rather than just kept in check or abandoned in old shopping center parking lots.

You can't tell how large this tree is from the picture on the right. It's the same location as the picture of Isaac and I up above. The lowest branch hangs above our heads. It is glorious.

I can't wait for fall to arrive to enjoy the beautiful mountains of Korea even more. I heard a joke that is almost completely true: South Korea is 70% mountains and 30% coffee shops. So there are plenty of mountains that will be filled with color as autumn arrives, and plenty of coffee shops to energize and relax in before and after hikes. I look forward to exploring both.