Mountains, deserts, and cowboys- all in Seoul

So it's time to catch up with everything that's happened in the last few weeks. First of all, there's been a lot of hwasa the past few weeks (yellow dust from the Gobi desert in China that has made its way to Korea. No, I'm not making this up). Here's a picture I found on the internet that someone took about 2 weeks ago from Seoul tower- you couldn't see it this well from inside of it, but visibility was real low and it made my throat hurt.









Kim and I went hiking a few weeks ago, and I managed to get a great shot of a Korean hiker while pretending to just take a picture of Kim:


Koreans take hiking seriously. They have a whole wardrobe solely for hiking- a special hiking hat, shirt, scarf, pants, vest, shoes, socks, backpack, walking stick(s), caribeanners, ice picks, etc. Ok, so the ice picks are a little rare, but the rest is standard equipment. This is the mountain that we climbed, Bukhansan- we didn't make it to the top, but we told ourselves we would next time. I can see it from my apartment, and while for some people seeing it every day would be like a constant challenge, I look at it and think "Boy, I don't want to waste my time trying to climb that thing again."








Also, I saw this guy downtown the other day, advertising something, and it was love at first sight. I'm just sorry I didn't get a better picture.