Episodic

I met a woman yesterday on the train. I have no idea what she was saying, but after I finished drinking my 2 liter bottle of water on my way back from my walk she took the empty bottle from me. She seemed pretty excited to get to keep it. (?)

I went hiking this morning at Munyang (문양). It's so beautiful! My knees are tired from all the downhill though. I think I might've pushed it a little hard since I only had three hours to get there, do the hike and get back, if I wanted a shower before work (which . . . I did - and everyone else wanted for me). Munyang is so differently beautiful than Alaska. Alaskan mountains are . . . indifferent. They are so many, and so tall and remote and, in many ways, unapproachable. Korean mountains are nothing like that. They seem old, like they've seen too much and are tired of it.

Things that count as mountains here in Korea would be considered hills where I'm from, and not even particularly large ones. I would love to be able to make you understand how they're still enough though, but I can't. I can't explain how worthwhile they seem after so much dingy gray and brown in the city. I came outside yesterday and this man stared at me as I walked past him urinating on a garbage pile. This is a first-world country, everything is paved, sanitation is very important to them . . . and there was an available bathroom about 30 feet away. *Sigh* I guess what I feel is a strange dichotomy. People talk about how lush and green Korea is, but in the long, grey-brown winter it's hard to imagine why.

And then you take the subway to Munyang . . . and just before the stop you come above-ground, you see a pond, and valleys full of rice paddies, and the tired mountains looking down. Somehow just wandering through the mountains and adding your weariness of the landscape to their own is refreshing like sitting and talking about everything that's wrong with a friend. Even if nothing gets solved, you're not the only one who sees it, someone else knows.

I also love the people I meet as I wander. Today on the trail I passed two Korean women going the opposite way. One of them wordlessly (this is actually inaccurate, she was speaking in Korean the whole time) managed to tell me she had seen me there the other day with Molly and ask if I was alone today. I also met a man on the subway going back who commented (they almost all do) on my footwear (gourmet sandals are where it is at) and ask me in motions where I had gone walking today. People can say what they want about the world being a dark and lonely place, I felt like God's face shone on me today. People are such a delight to Him, and I am thankful for being blessed by finding delight in them as well.