Gipfelschnaps and grass snakes
October 9, 2007 | 9:29 pm | Uncategorized | Below The 38th Parallel, El Perro | 0
This is the start of the third fall in a row I have lived in this apartment in Korea. It’s still warm during the days but it’s now cool enough to leave the windows open at night. The past few weeks have been gray and rainy, which gives the air a misty sea-breeze feeling I’ll miss when I move back to Houston. And the smell — the smell that emanates and originates from somewhere in this building, drifting with the breeze outside and through my open window in the evenings now. I have never figured out who it is, but someone in this apartment smokes cigars, and he is heralding the fall for me as he has done the two years previously.
It’s made me a little lovesick, actually, because there’s almost nothing better than Christopher’s winter beard, cold from standing on the roof where he goes to smoke his nightly pipe, and which I bury my face into and absorb the smell. One week down, two weeks to go.
Jirisan was a beautiful as usual and for the second year in a row we had banner weather. Last year I hiked the highest peak, starting at 600 meters and ending at 1900. It took about 9 hours round-trip and, having done it once, I didn’t feel the need to do it again. This year I hiked to a lower peak, Banyabong , about 1700 meters, but starting at 1100 meters. It took right at 5 hours, including a break during which I ate lunch and had my gipfelschnaps, which was actually rum, not schnapps.
Sunday I visited a nearby temple, Hwaomsa. This was by far the largest and most spectacular temple I’ve seen in my time here. It was also one of the most bustling. The complex was made up of several smaller buildings, and inside of each were monks and meditators chanting and banging their hypnotic, regular beat. You could stand in the middle of the grounds and hear several different beats at a time, intersecting and reverberating off the hills that flank the temple. Or you could walk up to each building and listen more closely, the sound of one chant drowning out all the rest. At one point, I approached a small room in the corner of the complex and stood, transfixed for several minutes, while listening to the monk inside chant and beat, chant and beat. I left feeling quite moved.
On our walk through the park this afternoon Gus and I found a tiny, slender snake, the same color of dead grass. Gus snuffled it and scared it into a defensive coil, and it sat there, tiny and pathetic compared to the two of us, and shook its rattle-less tail at us. I managed to drag Gus away and hopefully left the little bugger in peace.
I think Gus was nipped or bitten by it though, because as we walked back to the building he began to sneeze in the way you do when you bonk your nose, and there was drool swinging from his jowls. The snake was so small I assumed it was harmless, and Gus has been acting normal (well, normal for him) since then, although he now has a small red spot on his snout. Boy scout he is not. Silly dog.
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