Old Korean Hippies

So this past weekend, we hiked Suraksan Mtn. It is quite popular with the locals, or at least the locals who are past the age of 50. We made it up to the summit without too many surprises. What we thought was a monk chanting, upon approach was discovered to be an ice cream salesman. We also passed what looked like a make-shift cafe of sorts. Either that, or a bunch of old guys making a fort and drinking themselves blind. The view was incredible from the top though. Seoul has a smog problem, so photos do not really do the view justice. It was breathtaking. Getting there took some skin too, as we had to boulder through several places, and well, granite is granite. Overall it was quite a time.

On the way back down, as we were passing the cafe/old man fort, one of the guys called to us to stop and have a drink with him. We had just run out of water, so we figured, "Why not? They have to have some water, right?" It's not like we were going to get serenaded for three and a half hours and not leave the mountain until we had eaten dinner and swapped life stories right? OOOhhhhhh, wait.

I'm glad that we were familiar enough with Simon and Garfunkel and the Eagles to join in on the choruses, and that we had enough tact not to turn down their hospitality or cooked squid. This was how we met Solomon and Jude. Solomon said that he chose the name because he wanted to be wise, and thus according to H Rider Haggard, rich. He was 50+, and his personality was the kicker. He was very sincere, very charismatic, very friendly, and well, blunt. Multiple times, he told me that I was too fat and that I needed to 'reduce my belly.' "If you have bigger belly at all, I hate you. You have no self control." I laughed at most of this, as I am decently fit for an American. I've even been losing weight here. He on the other hand looked like he weighed 140 fully clothed and soaked. We had a grand 'ole time until we had to part ways, but not before making it to two cafes, one on the mountain, one off. It has now been decided that we shall hike together once a month. More stories to come, I am sure.