The View

My apartment building, a mere 6 stories with some private golfing (apparently) on the roof, is situated just so in a row of shops and apartments and restaurants and millions of things to buy that one would never be able to get enough perspective to know that there's a mountain. Right there. Take a right outside my front door, a right onto any of the side streets, weave your way up through some hilly residential area (a quaint sight that also seems incongruous in its proximity to our somewhat gritty digs), and suddenly you'll be walking up a well kept path on a modest mountain. To your left will be nearly forest. On your left, a sea of apartment buildings that barely seem real, and public exercise equipment.

I had the delight of seeing women hula hooping and using something like a cross between playground equipment and a gazelle, men praying (on my way up) and drinking and eating fried chicken (on the way down), children catching a bird in a net and freaking out, community spring waters, and an adorable white puppy covered in mud, all on the same walk around our little mountain.

Residential.



Buddhists, not Nazis. Look at those little flowers a growin.'



Mountain steps! (P.S. There are so many adorable cruiser bicycles here. I miss you, bike!)





Here is the pagoda where we were fed Korean pancake and kimchi and makgeolli by some very friendly people eating brunch. Delicious. We need to remember to have brunch there before it freezes.



Past all those buildings! Another mountain! Can you see it?



Cool, fresh mountain water!