Mountain Songsanri

Today I went hiking. This is something I do frequently; however, today I went hiking with two older Korean gentlemen--one is 56, the other retired from his work at Nestle two years ago. I wrote some things like how I love being "struck by the leaves of fall," and "Nothing bad happened today... nothing"--although I did fall, twist my ankle, bang my knee and nearly lose my glasses in thousands of leaves--"I find that the best places to BE are usually the hardest to get to," "I am sitting in a tiny car with three older Koreans. I have taken to describing Teacher Bone as 'ancient': old AND respected. To put it at its most simple: I am humbled in his/their presence. It makes me proud. We are on our way to a mountain called (and here I asked teacher bone to write down the name of the mountain and he wrote a few things for me): 'Mt. Sokri (we later found out it was Songsanri). On top of that mountain is called Mun Jang Dae which is so popular in beauty scenery.' There is a buddhist monastery on top of the Mt. Sokri (I later realized it was at the base), and a long time ago, Bone Teacher's father was there--whether for a visit or for a long time is not known, and I could ask, but I think we're just going to let it linger in delicious obscurity for the time being. For now, we are doing. We're doing the damn thing, as it were, and we're being as respectful as possible of the beauty of nature. 'Go be whatever you want to do,'" and "Just me and two ancient Korean men. I fell... Teacher Bone had gone on ahead. Emo's husband found my glasses (Emo is the cook at our school, and her husband--who was only referred to as "Senior" all day because of his elder status--had been up Mt. Songsanri a number of times and wanted to guide us). What if. It just goes to show you, no matter how slow and careful you are, you still might find you tumbling down a million rocks. Going up is more secure, somehow you have gravity on your side." I saw millions of rocks today. LIterally, millions, and they were all roughly big enough for one person to carry with a certain amount of strain. But, there's really no way to explain what happened today, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, then I actually wrote twenty thousand words already today. But for now, I guess I'll put the burden on the reader here and ask for a then thousand word essay on: