Mudeung Mountain (or Mudeungsan, as it is lovingly known here), has been one of my favorite leisure activities since moving here. The mountain is a 40-minute bus ride away, and the bus stop is a five-minute walk from our apartment, so I have gone hiking up the mountain four or five times since we arrived in June. It is especially lovely now that the leaves are turning for the fall. I have seen both Jeungsim and Yaksam temples, and about two weeks ago, I finally made it to the top with my co-worker. We made it up in record time (2 hours and 6 minutes), and made it down even faster. She is now my new hero - I thought I was in decent shape from the yoga and walking that I do during the week, but I was struggling to keep up with her!
The weather has been getting cold very quickly lately. I remember all the complaining we did during the summer months, when it was so humid that I had to take two showers a day and poor Joel's hair was wet with sweat. After it cooled down a bit, we had a few weeks of very pleasant weather, but now it drops down to about 40F at night. On top of that, we have had gray skies and light rain on and off for the last few days. We have all been fairly unmotivated to do much these last few days.
On a more positive note, we are starting to get to know the younger priest at our local parish here. I found him on KakaoTalk (a free message service that is pretty much universal here) after going to daily Mass last week, and he took us out to dinner on Friday night. He is a very genuine guy, though a little embarrassed about his English - as most Korean adults tend to be here. Still, it has been nice to actually be able to talk to our parish priest; the ones back home were always too busy to really get to know us. Someone in my family was recently referred to an oncologist, as he may have leukemia; all I had to do was send a message to Fr. Thomas, and he offered to not only pray for him, but to say a Mass for him on Monday.
Life continues as usual here. We just finished another round of exams, along with a Halloween party for the elementary school students. Several of my coworkers and I are planning a hiking trip to Jirisan, a mountain range that is a big national park here in our province, next weekend, and one of my high school friends who is teaching in Seoul may come into town the weekend of my birthday. We are thinking about negotiating an extension of our contract to stay at our school for at least another six months and also planning when we will buy a comforter, an electric blanket, and/or a space heater for the coming winter. Life continues as usual.
What I have found myself doing more than anything else in the months that I have been here has been thinking - thinking about life, my career, family and our family plans, marriage and relationships, and what it means to be a stranger in a strange land. I think I will be a very different person when I finally go home.
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