It began with the subway, and a midget who was very careful to hide his cell phone screen. When I moved, he followed me. The paranoia set in. Was he taking pictures of me?
A few stops later, the man left, and shortly after we did too. Angela, Elizabeth, and I were going on an adventure in Busan, Korea's second biggest city. We were going hiking.
Geumjeongsan Park is located in the city. A short walk from the subway a cable car (or path for the more fit) leads up a mountain to the remains of an ancient fortress. At first we thought we'd gone the wrong way, so we enlisted the help of a strange, overly helpful Korean man. He lead us through a mountain path with rusted carnival rides. The rides were running, but there was almost no one in the park. The path was lined with little concession carts that sold soju and children's toys. They were the kind of toys you find at a garage sale, dirty and antiquated. There were no children.
The Korean man left us at the cable car, where more Korean men took an interest in us. One man tried to lead us away from the car to an outdoor meal, while another man unabashedly took photos of us. We refused the food, and braved our luck with the cable car. It took a few extra minutes, because the maintance man was busy scraping rust off the sides and top of the car. The view was gorgeous.
When we reached the top of the mountain, the photo man tried to follow us down a path. We changed directions. We tried to find food without scary, persistent men. The ajuma (a married woman, but it is used negatively to depict an older woman with no fashion sense) laughed at us. She brought us migooks (Americans) to the attention of all of her other diners. We left, and continued down the path.
Past the South Gate of the ancient fortress, we veered right down a sharp and winding road. Surreal farmland surrounded us: we were in the heart of the nation's second largest city; men and women were weeding their gardens by hand, and we couldn't see the skyscrapers. It was nothing like Central Park.
We came upon a large gate way that in English and Hangul read "Black Goat Village". A woman motioned about food, and since we were in search of goat meat (Geumjeongsanseong Park is known for it) we followed her. We grew apprehensive as she guided us down tortuous alley ways amidst small farm houses. We followed the woman through eerily quiet streets to a place where we would never have followed a man, and we were rewarded with one of the most interesting diners I have ever had.
We ordered goat and mekale (a Korean rice wine that is white and milky), and began to eat our feast. After eating quite a bit of food, I was surprised by a large chunk of hair attached to a piece of meat. The hair was definitively black, but I didn't really need that much reasurance that I was eating a black goat. Nonetheless, the meal was delicious.
After diner, we began walking home through the same farms that our side dish vegetables had been picked in and the fields our dead goat had grazed in; however, we soon discovered we were actually walking into Oh My Land, the actual name of a place in the center of the park. Rather than explore past sunset, we took a bus back to the skyscrapers of Busan, and to Haeundae Beach- Korea's most popular ocean site.
There we enjoyed the sand, stars, and conversation (with Mekju [beer] of course). We also paid $60 to sleep on the floor.
Now that I've returned from my Busan adventure, I realize the strangest part about the trip is the retelling of it. After three months here, my day seemed quite normal for Korea. It didn't strike me that anything was that odd until I tried putting it into words. The strange is becoming familiar, or maybe I just watched the Twilight Zone one too many times.
(I've listened to the comments, and posted bunches of pics. Besides Busan, I've included pictures from the annual Lantern Festival in Jinju. Elizabeth and I went there Friday night, and we went on our Twilight Zone adventure on Saturday. Enjoy!)
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