nature in numbers

Don't worry about getting lost on a Korean hiking trail. It's not gonna happen. In fact, don't worry about bears or running out of food or being kidnapped. These are all things that happen if you're alone in nature. And one must remember that being alone in nature doesn't happen in Korea. Especially at Seoraksan National Park in the fall.



At Seoraksan hiking is done in throngs. Great heaving throngs with advanced levels of fitness... shocking levels of fitness. Old women click their tongues somewhere behind you on the trail and before you can get out of the way they will pass you at a trot. Thankfully for the rest of us, these ladies are usually dressed in fuschia and are never seen in groups smaller than 15 so they won't be mastering the element of surprise anytime soon.

I promise that you have never seen anything like this. And unless you've tried it, you can't imagine the pressure there is to keep moving on a hiking trail when half of Korea is breathing down your neck. Literally. Because as you're navigating the stone staircase twisting down the mountainside, they're on the step immediately behind you. And at their pace they're coming pretty darn close to breathing down your neck until they weave deftly off the trail and bypass the meandering amateurs. (Here I add that even the most crowded of Alpine ranges are undiscovered wastelands by comparison.)



The crowds are certainly part of the experience and we had a great time on our visit to Seoraksan. We hiked up, we hiked down. We laughed at warning signs featuring cute bears and their cute bear children. We had a delicious Korean lunch that our friend made. I even said "tasty!" in Korean when I started to eat it. (Not that I knew what I was saying. It turns out that our Korean language teacher has been training me Pavlov-style. She has me say the same phrase - Tasty! - at the start of every lunchtime language class, which just so happens to be when I'm eating my lunch. So now, without even thinking about it, anytime I put food to my mouth, I say "tasty" in Korean. She must be proud.)



We also had a traditional post-hiking meal which means that we went to a restaurant at the base of the mountain, took off our hiking boots, sat on the floor, and ate bibimbap and soup. And yes, the restaurant was full - note the long line of hiking boots at the foot of the raised dining area.

So... Hiking - great. Food - great. Traffic - not so great. It took three hours to get to Seoraksan but five hours to get back. And I can vouch for the fact that the bus driver was using all manner of shortcuts and creative driving to try to avoid the traffic. You don't usually expect that when bumper-to-bumper traffic comes to a standstill you'll be presented with a panoramic view of the hay harvest, but in Korea it's entirely possible.



Stefano-shi pointed out that once we got close to Seoul we crossed the same river four times - more attempts to avoid traffic. It's funny that we spent a total of eight hours on a bus for the pleasure of hiking Seoraksan with a million of our closest friends while our driver crossed the same river four times to avoid these same people.

And one last bit of advice we learned the hard way: hide your trail mix from soju-drinking hikers. Apparently the consumption of soju in the wild outdoors not only emboldens its drinkers, but gives them an overwhelming urge for the trail mix of strangers.

all together now

Sometimes we worry that the uniquely vivid slacks so beloved by Italian males are going unnoticed since we've left Italy. So during our recent wander across northern Italy we made up for lost time... In Treviso. In Venezia and Burano. In Milano and Alba and Bassano del Grappa. The uomini of Italy didn't let us down and even made sure to hang out in pairs so that they would be easier to spot in a crowd. And for their efforts, we say: "Grazie mille. Our trip wouldn't have been the same without you."

Oh, and one more thing: "Punch pants!"

Songni san

Before Saturday's trek we'd heard anecdotally that Koreans like to hike "straight up" and that there's no such thing as switchbacks on the trails here. I understand what they mean now, in the way that only someone who has climbed straight up a mountain without the use of switchbacks can understand.

Our afternoon was one of those sprawling physical quests where after you've poured so much effort into the attempt, regardless of the mounting feeling of impossibility, you just keep going. Putting foot after foot on the stone steps leading up, up, up. Smiling with hope at the people coming back down the trail, looking to them for some sort of inspiration or at least a raised fist and a shout of Korea's national mantra, "Fighting!"

We just kept going up and up, until we reached that top. And once we got there we shared a Gatorade toast, a great view, and the realization that going straight down probably wasn't going to be so easy either.

happy birthday, from scratch

I requested... a three-layer chocolate cake with peanut butter cream frosting and a dark chocolate ganache glaze. I got... the best cake I've ever had in my life.

Thank you Stefano-shi!

34 in halong

If a husband loves his wife he will spare her the knowledge that a gigantic meaty spider is lurking in the rafters of the thatched hut where they are eating dinner. He will keep this information to himself because he has an inkling that if his wife were to find out that these types of spiders live on the island where they are spending the night, she would never -ever- fall asleep in their small and exceedingly open hut on the beach.





I am happy to report that I am a loved wife and did not find out about the mammoth spider until well after breakfast the next day. That's not to say that I slept much anyway. Despite the sleepiness cultivated by an afternoon of kayaking and a birthday bottle of Vietnamese wine, our bodies noticed when it came time to turn off the generator. Our hut had two small oscillating fans, one pointed at each of our mosquito netted "beds," and the moment that generator stopped, the hot circles of air issuing from the fans stopped as well. So did the white-noise hum that had done such a good job of masking the scratching and rooting of nocturnal things.



Waking up that next morning was as much about rising to face a new day as it was about trying to find a new breeze. We stumbled out of our hut and found that our strip of sandy beach had grown overnight. With the help of the tide, the clear waters of Halong Bay had taken a deep breath and pulled back to reveal many yards of beach that were previously underwater. Strips of yellow sand appeared along the handful of islands visible from our beach and later that morning we explored one of them after kayaking through the calm bay.



The waters of Halong Bay are green and warm and in the best places they are so clear that you can see your feet shuffle along the sandy bottom. These waters have a habit of washing crowds of shells onto the beach, and gently rocking the jellyfish that float alongside your large dragon boat as it pilots to places both secret and wild. They are salty and tepid and reflect the sun like a 1000 watt bulb. They are the stuff of postcards and guidebooks and warrant every ounce of attention that they receive.



It was a thrill to be the only guests on an island. We hadn't expected to be the only people on our kayaking tour and were surprised to find that our only neighbors would be the staff: three young Vietnamese guys who, when they weren't snoozing in hammocks, were enjoying their nightly generator splurge of dance music and satellite TV.





On what turned out to be our personal tour of the bay we went kayaking twice. One outing ended in a glorious quest to avoid heatstroke, and the other delivered us not only through a small rock tunnel but also to a floating fishing village populated by entire families, their agile dogs, and the floating cages of fish they were raising.





Back at the beach we watched giant black wasps dig tunnels in the sand beneath our breakfast table and were amazed by the sun's quick work at drying our sopping-wet clothes. We went swimming and shell hunting, and took cold-water showers looking out on the bay. We sprayed DEET and SPF 50 and didn't brush our teeth.





The concept of luxury is fluid and I swear to you that last week it meant sleeping on a thin mattress among the ants and begging the wind to bring a breeze.

hanoi for beginners

Don't believe what they say - it is entirely possible to cross the street in Hanoi. However, doing so means resigning yourself to unspoken traffic traditions and putting your health and very existence into the hands of a hundred people piloting motorbikes laden with children, vegetables, and 35 foot lengths of pipe. And that's just what's driving past downtown.



Take a drive even 20 minutes out of Hanoi and you will find the roads sparse with vehicles but edged with a thick bustle of random transport. Two hundred pounds of lifeless hog laid across the back of a motorbike, eerily pink in the sun and moving steadily along the road. A woman, her face shielded by the standard conical straw hat, holding equally tightly to the handlebars of her bicycle and to the five dead chickens she has in each hand; the birds picture perfect and moving only when the wind disturbs their feathers. Uniformed factory workers finishing their shifts and piling onto bicycles -- two friends onto a single bicycle, layering their four feet on the pedals and powering their way home together. A table and chairs balanced on a motorbike in the small chunk of seat left behind the driver.



It is absolutely no joke to be in the dead center of the road and see a motorbike that looks like a moving vegetable garden coming straight for you. Your brain locks and your body screams to run, but the only solution is to focus on the other side of the road and continue to put one foot in front of the other. Slowly. You must know and trust that the vegetables and their driver will either rush past your front, or veer to your back. There is no stopping for them and there is no stopping for you. There is only the constant flow. The occasional traffic lights only serve to create temporary parking lots in which hundreds of motorbikes pause - humming - and wait for the light to change and the streets to swarm again.





Hanoi is hot, so hot that people in the know resign their bodies to the midday swelter and sleep wherever it is that they find themselves. We walked through a small muggy market over which a random tapestry of striped fabrics had been hung. In the bright afternoon sun these fabrics cast watercolor hues on the marketplace below but the vendors didn't care; most were sleeping under their vegetables or alongside their eels. It was too hot to shop, and therefore too hot to sell.



Watermelon juice is one solution to these problems. Or better yet, a tall glass of watermelon juice and a fan blowing hot air through your hair and drying the sweat off your back. There are also delicious fresh lunches piled high with tangles of lotus root and banana flower, peanuts and bean sprouts. The taste is a mix of vibrant fish sauce and vinegar, and flavors that most westerners don't know how to begin to explain. And even in the heat there is delicious Vietnamese coffee, strong and syrupy with a basement of condensed milk. After swirling it all together the coffee is sweet and strong, and a reason to relax at a sidewalk café even if you're not yet tired.



Pho (pronounced "fuh") is the steaming bowl of beef and leafy greens known as the national breakfast of Vietnam. It is savory and wonderful and comes accompanied by tiny round limes that are squeezed fresh into your bowl. There are containers of hot and spicy sauces too, and if these seasonings aren't already on the plastic curbside table when you arrive, the regulars will pass them along. You might not notice because you'll still be trying to figure out exactly where to stash your legs as they most definitely do not fit under the tiny table; and your doll-sized plastic stool won't help because sitting on it started the problem by placing your knees up somewhere near your shoulders. But this is what eating somewhere else is all about - it's real food on the side of a real road sitting on plastic doll furniture with real people. And at the bargain price of a dollar a bowl I think I could get used to this.



Filling your days in the city is easy. There are art galleries in old decaying homes in which the interior gardens are often as beautiful as the art. There are haircuts and close shaves at a sidewalk barber under the leafy trees. There are lakes and pagodas and as many historic sites as you'd like to explore. (There are also people pulling turtles out of the picturesque lakes and shoving them quickly into their pockets but I doubt you'll find that on a postcard.)



It's possible to visit the infamous Hanoi Hilton with its well-known and unfortunate American connection. And while visiting the remainders of the prison, which now form a small museum, you'll discover that before the Vietnamese kept American soldiers there, they themselves were imprisoned there by the French who had originally built this place to hold Vietnamese political prisoners who resisted their rule. And yet even with the recent and violent history between America and Vietnam, there were still nothing but smiles from normal people on the street. Making eye contact with someone in Vietnam usually ends with a smile, unless of course you're wandering through the market at its peak and then you might get an encouraging shove to the side instead. In general practice it's best not to get in the way of people who've been up since 3:00am cleaning fish and killing chickens.



Once a year in Vietnam there is the Mid-Autumn festival celebrating not only the harvest moon but in more modern times, one's children and family. To the random foreigners who out of sheer dumb luck are wandering the streets during this magical party, it looks like a kid-pleasing combination of Christmas and Halloween. There are costumes and presents, candies and balloons; mice for sale by lantern light and fire lanterns intermittently rising into the sky.



The crowds were thick and motorbikes were constantly threading their way through the masses. But the feeling of this commotion, the mood in that sweltering block of humanity, was nothing but pleasant and light. I have never been in a crowd of people that was both so gigantic and so easy going, with children running the streets in devil horns and asleep on their parents' motorbikes by the end of the night.





Hanoi has that remarkable quality of looking as if a good solid thump on the back could make it all fall apart, while at the same time absolutely singing with the hum of life. The electrical lines that cross the streets like handfuls of long black snakes, and the aged trees that command so many patches of sidewalk manage - miraculously - not to intertwine.



The simple bowls of pho made in makeshift kitchens no bigger than closets and eaten every morning at the curb carry a country's well-deserved culinary reputation to places very far from here. And motorbikes that follow no rules successfully transport entire families through daily life while weaving through a thousand other families doing the same.

This is the place to watch chaos frizz into normalcy while a million moving pieces fall perfectly into place.

we didn't get lost

The Korean peninsula likes to keeps us guessing. It uses a language we don't know and an alphabet we've only just learned to read. It talks to us and all we can do is smile and nod. But the smiling is more important than the nodding. Far more important. Because smiling means that you can get on the subway and ask a stranger how to get to the city of Suwon, and he will get off the train with you, walk you to your connecting train, and wait until you get on your way to Suwon.

And before you board the train the helpful man will say, "Have fun!" But then he will also quickly ask, "Can I say that? Is it correct to say "have fun'?" He'd already asked us earlier whether it is better to say "large" field or "big" field? Large field or big field? It's an admirable trait of many Korean English speakers... the desire to perfect their already solid English abilities. He's asking us how best to describe a wide swath of grass in English while we're just glad to know how to say "yes" and "no" in Korean on a good day.



These rudimentary language skills came in handy in our first real effort to transit and map our way to an unfamiliar Korean location. Our destination was the Hwaseong Fortress, a UNESCO heritage site in Suwon, outside of Seoul. After successfully arriving at the Suwon train station we got out our map and headed into the city past signs we had to sound out slowly and street names we thought we could read.

We poked our heads into a small store and asked the woman sitting at the cash register if we were going in the right direction. Actually, to be a touch more accurate, we said the name of the temple in our thick American accents and pointed up the street with a hopeful look on our faces. She nodded and pointed her own hand in that direction. And then Stefano-shi in a bold go at using our elementary Korean skills said, "Hwaseong Fortress, I walk?" And the lady nodded again. Hooray!



We did remarkably well and found our way to the perfect place to start exploring a fortress. Hot, humid, and uphill - we just kept walking up the hill and into the humidity until we reached the snack shop and the fridges filled with iced coffee and ice cream. And with our iced coffee and ice cream we explored the fortress all studded with turrets and temples, nooks and crannies. There was a big bell and someone's picnic laid out under painted rafters. And all the while storm clouds hung overhead but never let go of a drop.

We went aways in one direction and thought we might want to go a bit further until we ran into a very steep and very long set of stairs going straight down. We both looked at the stairs and then at each other, and then turned around again. We went back the way we had come and then some, and it was the perfect tour. Our route gave us great views of the city of Suwon, with its high-rise apartment buildings crowding any space not part of the hills. And in the end we realized that if we had followed our guide book's directions exactly, as in word-for-word, we would have made the fortress climb coming from the opposite direction and found ourselves on an ugly uphill trek. Instead, we saw it from the downhill side.



When we were back on the ground floor of the city we rambled through the marketplace all full of kittens in bird cages, dried fish in sacks, and sunglasses... jammed in and crammed in with someone screaming their benefits into a microphone. And on our way back to the train station we stopped for lunch at a kim-bap place and accidentally interrupted the staff's lunch. We ordered soba noodles, kim-bap, and udon soup and were rewarded with a flock of side dishes to boot: chilled kim chi, acorn jelly, sea weed, bean sprouts with sesame, green beans in chili. And in addition, since the staff was eating and happened to be generous, we benefited from a generous offering of chop chae (noodles) from their own meal.



Then we were back on our way to the train station where Stefano-shi bought railway train tickets for the way home (instead of taking the subway) and decreased our return trip to a brief 30 minutes. Sitting on the train, chugging our way back home to a home that's not quite home, was reminiscent of how we spent our two years in Italy. Not quite the same, but similar. Except that we woke up to a Musack version of the Beatles's Let It Be blasting from the ceiling speakers at peak volume as the train pulled into the station, presumably to wake up all the snoozers. Never had that in Italy.

summer in seoul

Last Saturday was hot and humid and a most imperfect day for wandering around outside. But seeing as it was the first Saturday in recent memory in which we were free to do whatever we felt like doing, the taxing weather was a non-issue compared to the sheer exhilaration of having nothing on our proverbial plates.

We decided to work on our Seoul To-See list and found ourselves wading through downtown's thick humidity, exploring Deoksugung palace. It's a nice sprawl of greenery and historic buildings in the center of the city and a well-organized cicada battalion manufactures rhythmic static in the shadows. You wouldn't know you were steps from City Hall if it weren't for the high-rises peeking their way through the open spaces.

Our noontime wandering turned us both into glistening examples of the human body's basic cooling methods and it wasn't pretty. The whole sweat-dripping-off-the-elbow thing is far from picturesque, and from what I can tell, may not even be that effective. And when a small huddle of vending machines appeared in the distance we couldn't have been happier.



Not only were there cold liquids for sale in these magical machines, but included in that group was a drink we'd long been meaning to try: Pocari Sweat. Yep, the word "sweat" is part of the name. I guess it might make sense to someone, you're losing a lot of sweat - why not replace it with more sweat? Preferably the lemon-lime flavored Pocari variety. (Makes Gatorade sound downright boring.)

We got a second wind with our can of sweat and went on to finish our wanderings. Towards the rear of the park, by the art museum, was a rather European feeling space with a fountain and benches and manicured gravel. We took a seat on a bench under a vine-shaded arbor and found ourselves witness to the shared culture of relationships, or at least the shared practice of men getting stuck hauling around their girlfriend's purses.



Leaving the palace grounds we were sapped and hungry and looking for some serious air conditioning and food -- in that order. We ended up at a branch of our favorite bi bim bap place. I got a cold vegetarian bi bim bap and it was perfect. Fresh and light and a healthy accompaniment to the big vegetable pancake that we shared. And the best part of the meal? The large TV broadcasting the Olympics.



I will watch just about any Olympic event that you put before me and it's been great to see the Korean perspective. The sports that are embraced by the Korean public, and shown in force on local TV, are not the sports that Americans are used to watching in prime time. There's a lot of archery, judo, weight lifting, table tennis and badminton... all sports in which the Koreans excel.

Watching the opening ceremony was memorable due to the dramatic spectacle so well manufactured by the Chinese but also because we were watching it live on Korean TV. We couldn't understand the play by play but we did use our basic Korean abilities to sound out the country names as they rolled across the screen in Korean.



What I'd really like to see is a Korean athlete with a Pocari Sweat logo tucked into the corner of their jersey. I haven't noticed one yet, but there was a female archer whose vest featured a large cartoon panda, some floating hearts and the word "love" in big bubble letters. If cartoon pandas full of love are Olympics-worthy, I'd expect a Pocari Sweat logo out there somewhere... it would be downright staid by comparison.

august 6

I've been busy with some special guests, but I'm back now.

seoul street scenes, 1

I like the idea that in some cities you never know what you're going to see on the streets at night. Not in a dangerous or call-the-police kind of way, but in the selling-baby-rabbits-on-a-cardboard-box kind of way.

So it's late and we've been singing. We come up out of the basement noraebang and get a face full of Seoul's summer heat. The street signs are bright and climbing towards the dark sky, and our ears are ringing a little from that last song. What are we thinking about? I don't know... the joy of having air conditioning in one's home, a big soft bed to sleep in, tiny baby rabbits...

No. Wait. Back up. I was never thinking of tiny baby rabbits - but then I saw a whole stack of tiny baby rabbits and couldn't get them out of my brain. They were so small, too small to be away from their mothers, and some of them were wearing tiny t-shirts. And they were the softest little creatures ever. I know because I couldn't help but pet them.



In the middle of all the oohing and aahing and petting you find yourself asking that automatic reflex of a question: just who walks past this overturned cardboard box covered in baby rabbits at half past midnight on a Friday and decides to buy one?

But then a couple comes along and picks out a matching set of baby rabbits. The man selling the rabbits puts them in tiny t-shirts which are really just glorified tube socks that have had the toes and everything above the heels cut off. The couple then makes the rabbits kiss (really) before placing them in matching shopping bags and walking off into the night.



I'm sorry to say that I was so entranced by the couple actually buying the rabbits that I failed to get a photo of them doing so. The above photo of another couple pondering their own set of matching rabbits will have to suffice.

And no, Stefano and I didn't come home with a matching set of rabbits. But if we did, we wouldn't have made them kiss first.

Pork + Soju

Among our colleagues in Seoul there's a little tradition called Soju Club and it's equal parts pork, soju, and crowd participation.

The pork is called "samgyupsal" and it's cooked at the table on a tilted griddle. Your server brings slices of raw pork that resemble very thick slabs of bacon, and lays them on the griddle - occasionally stopping by to turn the meat as it cooks. Once it's nearly ready, scissors are used to cut the meat into smaller pieces and diners use their chopsticks to pick up the pieces and wrap them in lettuce or sesame leaves, adding sauces and veggies to taste.

The best thing on the griddle - bar none - is the kim chi at the opposite end of the pork. The Koreans are a wise people and chose to put the pork at the top of the griddle mountain, while leaving the kim chi and onions at the bottom. This arrangement lets the fat drip its delicious way down through the onions and to a final resting place cuddling the kim chi. And oh, that kim chi is incredible. Food scientists might have chemical formulas for the magic that happens on the griddle - others credit the river of pork fat - but whatever the reason, kim chi has never tasted so delicious.



Soju, another critical element of Soju Club, is a fermented grain drink that's more popular than water in Korea. It typically comes in green glass bottles and is advertised everywhere by gorgeous women looking energetic and bright. However, I can report from first hand experience that while soju is definitely lighter than other alcoholic beverages, it's distant cousin could still easily be nail polish remover. I'm not one to eschew cultural mainstays with a simple "blech" but I do have to admit that when the odd bottle of soju hit the floor on Friday night, I shed no tears for the loss of liquid.

Soju is consumed in shot glasses and at this point it's important to note that one does not fill one's own glass in Korea - ever. So if you want to maintain your friends, you have to remember to keep an eye on their glasses... And if you're thirsty, you'd better hope that they're keeping a dedicated eye on your glass as well. If want to get really fancy about it you can fill your neighbor's glass by pouring the bottle with your right hand, and touching your right elbow with your left hand. This traditional gesture will definitely score you some cultural extra credit.



Crowd participation is crucial as there are many toasts to be made, and a lot of green bottles keep showing up on the tables. The crowd's interest and ability in keeping up with itself can be a delicate balance. The good news is that if you're like me, and order "naengmyeon" - my favorite cold soup - you can easily dump half a shot of soju in your bowl every round and no one's the wiser. But seeing as naengmyeon's too good to waste - with it's chewy noodles, hard-boiled egg, cucumbers, sesame seeds, and ice - I unfortunately had to wait until I had finished the better part of the soup to start using it as a soju repository.

The most important crowd participation comes at the end of the evening... Because after a night defined by pork, soju and greased kim chi there is nothing the crowd wants more than an off-key but enthusiastic rendition of Material Girl. With an encore of Sweet Caroline to follow.