Mudeung Mountain Night Hike

            Last weekend I went and joined some people to do a night hike up Mudeung Mountain here in Gwangju.  It’s a beautiful setting and I was excited to do something different and meet some new people.

            We all met up at 9:30, waited for some more people and made our way up.  The group itself was a pretty mixed group with some people knowing one another and the rest of us meeting for the first time.  Amanda and Scott, the Jersey couple, came out for the hike so we spent some time catching up and talking about Thor.  They too had noticed how the Koreans didn’t get all the jokes and that they would be the only ones laughing in the theater!

            The climb wasn’t that bad since a third of it was lit by streetlamps on the trail and everyone had flashlights or headlamps so it was pretty easy going up the mountain. 

Walking up with the lights.

            Once we were near the last third of the hike our leader Brian says that there’s a split in the path and to the left the path goes straight up the side of the mountain and is pretty challenging.  I was at the back of the group and I stared at the path as everyone passed me walking up the path that was easier for the group.

            Now I’m sure you’re thinking, “Oh man now Logan’s going to have an existential moment about whether to go on the path that’s easier and is taken by the crowd or choosing to go up the path that’s harder, isn’t known and is without a guide.  I’m sure that he’ll tie the moment through a metaphor that describes moving here to Korea to break away from the crowd, to go on a new path of life without a guide and that has a much steeper learning curve than what the path the crowd chooses to walk on. Plus he’ll even throw in an overused Robert Frost quote to perfectly tie it all together and impress us with his incredible pretentious writing skills.”

            Well a year ago my friend you would’ve been correct in assuming that but I actually thought about how much light the Moon was giving off.  I’m sure that you’d assume that to go on a night hike you’d need a flashlight but I’d forgotten to read that important memo and was now seeing how much light the Moon was putting on the mountain.  Well I ascertained that it was plenty enough for me and started up the path for the challenge of seeing if I could climb the steep path.  I made it about 50ft up the path when I heard a guy say, “Hey I’ll join you mate.”  He’s got a flashlight so I was down.  We introduced ourselves, his name was James, and made up our way up the mountain talking about moving here and what we want out of the experience.  I quickly learned that he was well read and also practices Hapkido, plays Rugby and moved here on his own about six months ago from South Africa so that he could be alone, read and write.  Wow doesn’t that sound familiar?

My flashlight:  Luna.

View from the path that James and I were climbing.

            We made it up to the top of the mountain ahead of the group and that’s when I realized that the Bogota we’re at is the same one that I see every day from my apartment!  I loved realizing how it all came full circle so James and I opened our celebratory drinks, chatted for a bit and took in the view.

                The guy talking is James and he's commenting on his Hapkido tournament.

            After everyone had caught up we hung out for a couple of hours on the Bogota talking about anything and everything but my favorite topic of the night had been making fun of Charlie Sheen.  After making our way back down the mountain we all went downtown, had some drinks and I made it home after dawn.  When I had woken up I found a Jack Daniels ashtray in my backpack but that’s a story for another day.