June 5, 2006
On our way down from the Munjangdae summit, in Songnisan National Park, we were passed by a large group of Koreans, who all seemed quite friendly. When we got to the next rest area, the group was seated around a large table, and waved us over to join them. Which we, of course, did. David tried using some of his Korean and they all laughed uproariously when he said we were from Migook (America) and then they got us drunk.
One of the items sold at the mountainous rest areas (or carried, if there's a threat that it won't be available) is a brown, watery drink of fermented vegetables that we were eventually told is 5 or 6 degrees (I don't really know what that means, but David said it's similar to the percentage of alcohol). When we were handed the small white bowls, I thought it was miso soup and was quite excited. David, apparently, thought it might be alcohol, but then tasted it and decided it wasn't and finished his bowl which was promptly refilled and then swallowed. I tasted it, realized it was alcohol, and sipped the rest of the time we sat with the group.
There were 9 people in the group (see 5 of them in the picture from David's last post), all engineers working for Vina, a small electrical engineering firm based in Seoul. Once a month, this group goes hiking in a different park. We chatted about engineering stuff and traveling in Korea and during the 20 minutes we sat there, we were handed a whole cucumber (which David tried to pass off to me with a "Did you see this?" ploy), given kimbap (a rice and vegetable concoction rolled like sushi) and two choco-pies (vaguely like ding-dongs). David seemed to feel badly about taking all the food, but I happily ate my choco-pie (so much for having given up chocolate) and we had to take the cucumber with us when we left.
One of the two English speakers in the group explained that cucumbers are really good to take hiking because they give you a lot of energy and have a high water content. The cucumber tasted really good when we ate it half way down the mountain so we brought some on our hike today (Magoksa Temple complex) that we were then able to trade when we were given tomatoes by another very friendly group. So now we have to take cucumbers, tomatoes, choco-pies and water. David's determined to out-give the next group we meet hiking, but I don't think it's going to happen. We only carry one small backpack, but every hiker carries their own here, so they can cram a lot more food in. But we'll do what we can.
