Chunui Mountain

Chunui Mountain is situated in scenic Chunui-dong, East of Jung-dong and North of Wonmi-dong. Check out the red X on the map. The Mountain is covered in artwork. In fact the gate leading to the mountain itself is made out of elaborate metal flowers. That's about three blocks and a bunch of not so scenic factories away from the actual beginning of the scenic mountain trail.

No trip to anything scenic would be complete without a sighting of Mama Kimchi, the ubiquitous Korean equivalent of the 'Keep on Truckin'' guy.

This is an interesting view of the small half-assed attempt to apartmentalize Chunui-dong, with the looming and seemingly ever-present Doosan We've apartments skulking in the background, um, looming and skulking at the same time. In the foreground is the electrical pole accoutrement graveyard serving the Bucheon area.

The first really scenic and mountainy thing we meet on our way up is Wisteria House (등나무집). No fooling, right nest door there's gingko house and across the street there's some other plant themed house. The menu at Wisteria house is topped off by dog soup, followed by several duck dishes.

This is the first sight we get of the mountain as we round the bend. To the left of the path you can see there are a lot of pieces of sculpture, which all serve roughly the same role as jungle gyms for most of the people hiking this mountain, i.e. children climb all over them and adults ignore them entirely.

On the right: giant cherry made of CDs. In the back: giant cherry tomato made out of IUDs.

These two statues appear to me to be perfectly positioned. The sun-dappled ideal of Bucheon as the perfect place to raise a shimmering and perfect family, and the reality lurking in the shade of the salaryman trudging, and I mean like super speedwalker trudging to work, umbrella in hand, because, as if life weren't dismal enough, the guy on TV said it's supposed to rain.

Here's some more hackneyed social commentary cum gymboree equipment.

I really like the layout of this hillside here, it's like some kind of mid-nineties test film that Pixar made to woo investors or something. Unfortunately the paint is chipping off of the red steel parabolic curve on the right, slightly detracting from the effect of the thing.

But enough sculpture, excelsior!

Another nice metaphor: the big broad paved road here is a complete dead end, winding up at a locked gate to a field full of pipes somehow vital for Northwest Bucheon's municipal water system. The tiny right turn is the way to go.

I lack the vision to be able to tell whether or not this scene would be nicer without the giant pinwheels.

Here's a grave or two.

And your back on your way.

Inside this head there is an honest to god jungle gym of the real kind, but it seems, to me at least, to be unenjoyable. This is no abortive attempt at a joke.

Here's my favorite piece of sculpture on the mountain. Manhole cracked, bass writhing, bald man in a suit jacket holding an enigmatic flute/paintbrush/'tool' cigarette-style and appearing to be reeling from the fishing trip. Why?

This is more or less the adult jungle gym portion of Chunui Mountain. On the right is some more low-key sculpture and on the left is some untarnishable indestructible public-use exercise equipment.

Seesaws, waist-twisting machines, and arm swinging machines.

Here's Bucheon stadium, seen from afar. If Mad Max comes to pass, this will be someone's stronghold.

Time to mount the summit, really really.

Oh, not yet, here's a rest stop. OK, now it's time to reach the top.

We're getting there.


Tada, Chunui Pavilion (춘의정). This is the catbird's seat from which to get hazy pictures of all the Bucheon landmarks.

On the left, the much talked-about Doosan We've apartments. The cream colored building on the left is the GS Square Department Store.

Cracking through the trees, it's Bucheon station (and Emart).

Pulling out, we can once again see Chunui-dong with Doosan We've in the background.

Here's the view off to the Northwest, and a bunch of stuff I don't recognize, including some of Incheon.

This is what the inside of Chunui Pavilion looks like.

On the way down I passed a woman swinging a farcically large hula loop, apparently under the impression that this was some sort of exercise.

And just as it began, so ends our trip up Chunui Mountain. Do check it out if you're in the neighborhood.

I'm better at spending my money than spending my time

Which is why I sell all I can. I only bring it up because today I sold my weekends. Actually, I sold the heart out of my Saturdays and Sundays. I'll be doing two hours in a row on those days, and there's a 2-hour round trip commute involved, so a good fat 4 hour-plus gash down the middle of each day. It wasn't an easy decision, but unfortunately, I am not in a position to refuse any offers for private English lessons. To my chagrin, my time is worth less to me than it is to quite a few Korean students of English. I am hard pressed to think of a period of time that I would not sell. I have left family gatherings to teach private lessons. I endure a lot of commuting and chronic pharyngitis due to my never-ending talking. I'm not complaining, I'm genuinely dazzled by the economics of it all. I can't afford my own time.
But it's not exactly that I can't afford it. I can't get as much value out of it by myself as I can by trading it for money. Like an American soy bean farmer at harvest time, I look at my schedule book and think "What am I gonna do with all of this?" The farmer says to himself "Let's see, my old buddy Chang usually takes about 15 kilos off of me, and my wife usually sticks a few cups of soybeans in her Far East of the Border Chinese Chili that always comes in dead last at the chili cook-off. The rest I can sell." What would an American farmer do with soy beans? Make baked beans with them? Make tofu? Well, what would I do with my time? Write a song that I can't even sing with my constantly swollen throat? Catch up on The Wire. Well, I'm all caught up.
Actually, part of the attraction of the private lesson is that the per hour rate seems so high when you don't factor in travel time. It's like renting a room in your apartment. It's just one room that you rent out, but the rest of the house becomes a public space. So reading in the living room is okay, but no more reading Herb Cohen in your underwear in the living room. Same thing for me. I can do anything I want during my commute, as long as it fits on my lap and tolerates a bumpy bus ride or lurchy subway ride (i.e. reading and writing and listening to mp3s. So it's still my time, but not really.
I hope some day to be able to afford to buy back some of my time. In fact it's been my goal for a while. I can imagine what it's like being a prostitute. The lure of easy money makes it seem almost impossible to turn down any offer. It's quite disturbing, in fact, to know your value. I assume a day will come when my time will become more valuable to me than its cash equivalent. I only hope that it realizes its value as time for doing something fulfilling. It would be a shame if the only thing that stopped me from selling away my time was the value that it held as time for sleep.