Summer's Final Adventures....

This week, I am discussing the idea of memory with my Intensive Listening class. More specifically, I am teaching them about age and its affects on our mental abilities, how well we can learn and retain information. I ask them who they think would perform better on a simple memory test: them or their parents?

The answer, of course, is them. As children, their ability to learn and remember is much greater. My class this week brings me back to the novel I just finished reading, called “The Year of Fog,” about a woman who loses her child on a San Franciscan beach early one morning and struggles to remember details that will lead to the girl’s discovery. Memory, the narrator says, is not unlike a photograph with multiple exposures. One event is layered on top of another, so that it is impossible to distinguish between the details of the two. The older we get, the more multiple-exposure memories we have. As the years progress and we experience more and more, the mini-narratives that make up our lives become distorted and corrupted.

I feel like I’ve experienced so much this year that my memories are already beginning to blur together. I notice now, as I am experiencing something, I am already trying to re-create the memory, to picture it in my mind or figure out how I will re-tell the details later. Memory is such a fragile thing, something that begins to erode before it’s even fully formed, and I don’t want to forget a single moment. This is impossible, I know, but through words and pictures, I will try nonetheless….

Last week two of my roommates from training in Seoul traveled out to Busan to visit, which was amazing. My Khanh, who also attended university in Seattle, stayed with me in my little studio, and we spent Saturday drinking tons of coffee and people-watching on the beach. We’d been trying to spread the last days of our Indian Summer as far as we could, and I think our afternoon on Haeundae may have been the end of sundresses and swimming for a while. On Sunday we wandered Jagalichi market, one of the largest fish markets in the country, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It reminded me of both Seattle and Africa, the smell of fresh fish, vendors wrapping their catch in paper and shouting to passerby, the wriggling and bulgy-eyed seafood laid out before us. The weather was overcast and gray, perfect for trying some sort of Korean pumpkin stew, which everyone disliked but me.

On Wednesday, Jenna and I finished classes early and boarded a bus to Gyeongju, about one hour north of Busan. The city is known as “the museum without walls” as it holds more tombs, temples, rock carvings, pagodas and ruins of palaces than any other place in South Korea. Of course, Jenna and I had a mere 16 hours so we awoke at 7am, took a bus to Bulguksa temple (a UNESCO World Heritage site) to admire the Shilla architecture amongst green gardens, and then left quickly to escape the throngs of Korean school children. We hailed a taxi up a winding road to the mountains above Bulguksa, and the grotto of Seokguram (another World Heritage site). There we paid $4 and then walked up a path through a thick wood, leading to the main attraction: a huge golden image of Buddha, where Koreans were kneeling to pray and more school children were shouting and taking pictures. I think the peacefulness was a bit lost on us, as the 400 or so grade schoolers seemed to spoil any serenity or quiet, but it was beautiful and well worth seeing.

Our tour de Korea continued Saturday, when we decided spur of the moment to hop over to Jeju island. The trip was easily one of the highlights of my time in Korea thus far. We arrived in Jeju-si, the island’s capital, early Saturday afternoon. The island atmosphere was immediately evident, the bright blue water sparkling below us as the plane landed, the bright green palm trees outside the arrival gate at the airport. Backpacks slung over shoulders, we immediately caught a cab to Sanseonghyeol Shrine, a site about 10 minutes from the airport. The shrine sits in the middle of a quiet and lush garden, an area that is basically three holes in the ground where legend says three brothers (Go, Bu and Yang) rose from the ground and founded the island. We wandered the grounds, snapped photos of the three holes and had the chance to see two of the remaining harubang, 250 year old statues carved from lava rock that were built to protect the island’s fortresses in the 1700s.

After dinner we boarded an old bus to Seongsan Illchulbong, a town about an hour and half away on the extreme eastern tip of the island. We were dropped off on the side of the road around 10pm, and were surprised to find the village dark and quiet. After walking up and down the high street several times, knocking on motel doors and questioning cab drivers snoozing on the side of the road, we found a place to sleep. Jenna’s cell phone woke us at 5:30am for our planned sunrise hike to the top of Illchulbong crater, a lush green volcano that plunges over the edge of the island, above the churning South Sea. Seeing the small village in the soft pre-dawn light was incredible; viewing it from the top of a jagged crater was breathtaking. I felt like I was at the edge of the world, the wind howling around me, the bright lights of fishing boats below as they returned to shore, the gray sky meeting gray sea before me. My friend Adam always recommends seeing a new place from its highest point, and doing so in Seongsan was magnificent.

Following a short nap, we boarded another teal-colored city bus to Manganggul, about 30 minutes north-east of Seongsan, to see the world’s longest system of lava-tube caves. We ate okdom for lunch, a salty snapper fish with transparent eyes, along with black rice porridge and plenty of kimchi. Then we bundled up and descended into the caves, dark black tunnels that were formed around 30,000 years ago as the lava cooled and hardened. For the first time since arriving in this country, I enjoyed over a half-hour of quiet as we followed the small lights on the cave floor, stepping over deep puddles and occasionally seeing the dark figures of Korean tourists as they passed by in the opposite direction. The cave’s ceiling seemed to be perspiring, dripping cold water atop my head from the ground above. I wish I had paid more attention in Mr. Border’s geology class in high school, trying desperately to remember the name of rocks or the processes they go through, but the eerie passage through the tubes was interesting regardless.

In mid-afternoon we boarded a ferry bound for Udo Island, off the eastern edge of Jeju. Skimming the grey waters on a cloudy day reminded me of Seattle, and the ferry rides from Bainbridge or Whidbey, bundled up in scarves and sweaters and sipping coffee. The island, about 16 km around, seems unspoiled, the only signs of tourism being the scooter rentals available as you step off the ferry. We were unable to convince the middle-aged Korean man to rent us a scooter, instead offered rickety old bicycles with metal baskets. Jenna’s was bright pink and mine a suitable green, and steering the things was like trying to maneuver a grocery cart with a wonky wheel. We cycled around the perimeter of the island, past the porous black rocks and startling white light house set against the lush greenness of the island. We spotted the weathered old ladies crouched on the rocks and in the sand, sorting through their catch of the day with quick fingers, staring out at the sky that looked like it could open at any moment.

The whoosh of the frothy waves was all I could hear along that winding road, keeping an eye on the flash of pink that was Jenna’s bike ahead of me, her hair blowing out behind her, the same jet-black as the lava rocks to our right. We walked along a white coral beach, coarse sand littered with shells and sea glass of varying aqua colors. It was serene and beautiful and unforgettable, and undoubtedly one of my favorite afternoons in South Korea.