The day day started well. I slept in, I got lots of cleaning done (everything in my apartment now sparkles), I did some well deserved relaxing, and I decided to go into town. My plan: catch the 3:40ish bus into town, transfer at the terminal onto another bus that would take me into Sarabongsan, climb to the top of the mountain, have a nice picnic, read a good book, and watch the sunset. Let's just say things did not go exactly according to plan.
I made the first bus, but when we got to the terminal it was going to be 30 minutes before the next bus was going to show. I decided that I could just walk to the mountain; I'd done it before. And I forget just how far it was. I wasn't a difficult walk, just one that takes an hour and a half. I finally made it to Sarabong Mountain. I had made it past the point of exhaustion and was feeling confident that I could make it up the mountain straightaway. I was wrong. Long story short, if you're going to walk for an hour and a half, wait 5 minutes before climbing a mountain, even a little one. Eventually, after much effort, I made it to the top. And I was just in time to see the sunset.
These sunsets are the reason I love going to Sarabong. It may be my favorite place on the island. You can see the whole city and watch the planes fly out from the airport. It's quiet at the top. And there's a friendly atmosphere as families, hikers, and the elderly made the climb up to the top to watch the sunset. As I was getting ready to descend I saw something very interesting. A large, black rabbit.
I have no idea what he was doing there, but he's the first real wildlife that I've seen since coming to Korea. I followed him around for a while, which confused to locals, but I was pretending that I was Alice and he was going to lead me to Wonderland... and then I realized that I was already there!
Yesterday I had a grand total of three human interactions (not counting my Skype chats with some of my favorite people). Not that that's good or bad. First, as I was heading downhill to the bus stop (munching on a very tasty cinnamon sugar roll) a truck pulled up along side me and the driver, a middle aged ajussi, shouted out the window at me, "You are very beautiful!", which was very nice of him. I responded "Mfmbft mwoo!" because I had just shoved a big bite of sugar roll into my face. But he understood.
Second, once I boarded the bus, I found that there were lots of empty seats, but people were usually sprawled, sleeping, or had set their bags in the "empty" seats beside them. I resigned myself to standing, but a young, pretty female student from the Tourism College moved her bags so I could sit next to her. And I said, "Thank you!" Clearly this time.
Third, when I was leaving Sarabong, I was walking along the sidewalk and a young student was coming towards me with his mother. He ran up and shouted "HELLO!!!" and I enthusiastically said "HELLO!!!" right back. His mother thought it was adorable. He wasn't even one of my students. Just a friendly kid.
So yesterday was a pretty good day for me. However, it was a bad day for some of my favorite Kpop groups. You might not care much, and it won't really affect my life terribly, but it was disappointing news to get.
First, it was announced that U-KISS' maknae rapper, Dongho, is going to leave the group. I love U-KISS, they're definitely one of my favorites. Dongho isn't a critical member, but he is definitely one of the popular ones. U-KISS is already struggling with their popularity levels in Korea. While they are fairly well liked abroad they're not that popular here. I'm hoping that the rest of teh group can really pull together and keep producing the same awesome music of which here is a sample:
The second bit of bad news came from the more obscure group DMTN. DMTN has had a rough road. They debuted as Dalmatian, kind of a last chance group of talented failures in the industry, but never really made it big. They have undergone a lot of member changes since debuting as well as company changes. One of the most talented members from the beginning was Daniel. He has an amazing voice and has sung with some of the best. But, he was just sentenced to one year in prison for selling marijuana 4 times. Korea is very strict about drug use and distribution, especially around idols; they make them an example in many cases to deter the average joes from dealing or using. I don't know how DMTN is going to pull through. They were already struggling, but I really hope this isn't the last we see of them.
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