My Mountain to Climb

As I promised myself, I have been walking (almost) every morning with Grimm for an hour or two. This is how I learned the lay of the land in Grand Rapids, & it's healthy, & Grimm loves it (his little nose doesn't stop twitching the whole time) & I get my AM dose of seeing the city & listening to my music without disturbing a sleepy Taylor. And now that the temperatures are climbing every day (we'll hit 60 tomorrow & a balmy 67 on Thursday) I hope my walks will become a solid morning tradition with my little furry best friend :)

All of our walks have been enjoyable, even the cold ones, or the ones that end with me asking directions & hailing a taxi home, but one has been magnificent & easily dwarfs the others; Bonghwasan Mountain. Last Wednesday Grimm & I set out on a normal little walk towards a park I saw a few days earlier, I believe I told Taylor I would be back in 45 minutes for breakfast. Now, Bonghwasan is close to us, not a long trek at all, maybe 10 minutes, but I hadn't planned on tackling the mountain that morning on my relatively short walk with Grimm, but all of a sudden I realized that that was exactly what we were doing. It was sort of one of those 'I'll just see what's around this bend' & then a 'well, I wonder if just a few steps more will have a better view' & then a 'I must be close to the top now, I might as well finish' until I had unknowingly made it to the peak and to a view of Seoul that pictures cannot do justice to. Mind you, it is about 9AM, a bright new morning just beginning to shine over the city, the sunlight showing layers upon layer of mountains in the distance, the city sprawling for as far as the eye can see. It was absolutely breathtaking, & even though they don't show it truly, here are a few pictures I snapped, both on my way up, and once I reached my destination.

Grim regally surveying the sights.

Unfortunately for me, Grimm wasn't expecting such a hefty walk either, and refused to hike back down, so he got a ride in my coat >.<

Grim not-so-regally viewing the sights from a new, higher angle.

Taylor has said he would love to go up the mountain sometime too, & now that its warmer out, hopefully we can hike together soon! I never really thought about scenery when I thought of Korea, but after doing some research (via my dad's Lonely Planet; South Korea) I have learned that Korea has coral reefs, beaches, mountains, islands, marsh and grasslands, forests, and just about every other form of natural beauty you can name! This will be a year of adventures for sure!

All of my love.
More to come,

Tea

P.s. I forgot to mention what else (besides panoramic views of Seoul) I found at the top of the Bonghwasan! Two distinctly different reasons people may take the hike...

1.) A temple, which wasn't much to look at, just a small house, & a concrete structure that looked a hybrid cross between an igloo & a pizza oven (?)

2.) Very different from the igloo-oven & temple house, was the aerobics class at the top f the mountain. About 25 middle-aged women were at the top of Bonghwasan doing choreographed aerobics together to 90's-to-now hits blared over a loudspeaker. It was hilarious, but also looked like quite a good workout! Hike up a hill for 60 minutes, workout for another 60 before hiking back down, sounds like the secret to living long & well to me if I ever heard it! I didn't get a picture of the women (I didn't want to be rude) but to the left of the flag there is a plateau where they were congregated.

Now you are truly caught up on my mountain shenanigans :D

Until next time,

Tea