Walking along the Seoul City Wall (Baekaksan Trail) in Autumn

Autumn is one of the best times to visit Korea. Seoul puts on a fantastic display of colour and every street is pretty. And, if you have the time, quiet walks — in nondescript streets — are just the thing to do. For me, autumn was the perfect transition between summer and winter. The mountains were now perfect for hikes and the Hangang River was a treat to explore on our bikes. Four years ago, autumn took on a new meaning and was quite literally a transition of our lives and what was in store for us.

After exploring the tranquil environs of Giksangsa Temple (prev post)– we walked along the quiet streets of Seongbuk neighbourhood. I think it was a weekend. I don’t know if it was just us (two carefree souls in a make-believe la-la land) or everything was actually pretty. The leaves creeping on the house, the street rising on a hill, and even a local church looked stunning. For most parts, we could even take off our masks because there was no other human in sight.

We decided to walk. And we kept walking as we always do — never really knowing where we’d end up. Not surprisingly, even our lives have begun mirroring our walks now. We saw a couple of maps, and honestly, I didn’t even bother to make sense of them. I was a bit overzealous about my photographic memory of the different sections of Seoul. I thought: I know where we are going.

We finally reached a section of the Seoul City Wall (Hanyangdoseong). I was ecstatic. There’s obviously a lot of history associated with this wall and it had to feature on our farewell list. Personally, we had so many memories of exploring different sections of these old city walls with our friends and visiting colleagues.

I thought, this was the section leading to Naksan (one of the four guardian mountains). In 2015, during my first visit, Naksan was the first guardian mountain and trail that we explored. The pandemic must have done a number on my internal GPS as it turned out to be a totally different trail.

This trail would lead to Waryong Park (among other historical sites) and is part of the larger Baegak Mountain Trail. I couldn’t believe it. Baegaksan (name from time of the Joseon Dynasty) was our first ‘legitimate’ hike in Seoul. Back in 2016, we were slowly transitioning to living in Seoul. It was around cherry blossoms when our Korean friend, Youngjoo (and her Italian husband Vito) took us hiking. They were spending a couple of months in Korea before leaving to live in another country.

Back then, I couldn’t even pronounce the name of this mountain (Youngjoo was equally confused). I wasn’t sure if it was Bukhansan (not a guardian mountain) or Baegaksan (Bugaksan being the present name) when I wrote my post. The hike was a refection of my poor fitness and an inspiration for me to keep challenging myself like the locals would. ‘Phighting’ (to persevere against the odds) became my mantra. It’s also something most hikers would tell me when they saw me straggling below.

We chose the stony steps over the wooden trail because they hugged the old city wall. We knew that we’d get a clearer view as we climbed higher. Again, we didn’t know how much we’d explore. But we kept climbing. Isn’t that how life is?

Keep going.

Don’t lose hope.

And who knows?

One day you’d reach a place where you will find inner peace.

With each step; we left the city behind.

We left our fears.

We left the stress.

We left isolation.

And in the midst of nature: we found ourselves.

Occasionally, we’d play hide-and-seek with the old city wall. The village houses were asleep as if someone had cast a spell on them.

We’ve always been amazed at how easy it was to get away from the city. These trails are also used for quiet walks or daily exercise by locals. Some resting areas have exercise equipment and benches — just to take it all in.

You can walk on either side of Seoul’s old city wall. The outer side is usually connected to older neighbourhoods with modest housing and quaint art villages. Entryways, like the one above, make it easy to exit the inner trail — if you have a change in heart. It was enticing to explore a new neighbourhood, but we chose to keep going.

Before we knew it, we had almost reached the Malbawi Information Center. I thought those grey steps looked vaguely familiar. I knew, we would have to return at some point ahead because we didn’t have our passports with us. I wasn’t sure if our Alien Registration Cards would be accepted and anyway it was too late to complete the entire hike. We decided to walk as long as we didn’t have to show identification — before the actual hike started.

There were so many hidden trails to explore. They diverged (or converged depending upon which side you were on) from the main trail. My neurodivergent mind was having a field day. I wanted to explore every single path that lead to the woods. I wanted to be everywhere.

But, we stuck to the trail, and we were rewarded with these stellar views of the city that we had come to love and call home. Lotte Tower was standing tall in the southern part of Seoul. The silence wasn’t terrifying. It was calming.

Our apartment was located on the crossroads of a busy arterial street in Gongdeok (Mapo). We had spent most of the pandemic trying to drown out the sounds of wailing sirens or impatient car horns. At that moment, I felt like I could finally — breathe.

No mask.

No other human.

Just pure air. *

* Looking at those blue skies there wasn’t a doubt in my mind about the AQI.

People ask me, to this very day, if I miss my life back in Seoul. It’s a very difficult question to answer. And I don’t know if I have an answer. Definitely not the right one.

I don’t miss being a dependant spouse.

I don’t miss being a legal alien in a foreign land.

I don’t miss having to bear the weight of cultural or racial representation.

I don’t miss the pain of not knowing when you’d see your parents again.

And, I definitely don’t miss those Siberian winds.

But…

I do miss these trails.

I miss those trees.

I miss autumn.

I miss how I felt in moments like these.

Free.

Without an invisible chain of expectation to bind me down.

We had come to a point where we had to take a decision. If we went further, we’d have to complete the entire trail. But, it was nearing noon and we hadn’t come prepared. We decided to go and explore Waryong Park. My Korean friends, Jebi and Yunsoo, had showed me this trail somewhere during the cherry blossoms of 2018.

How do you make local friends as an expat? The foreigner and local circles rarely coalesce. I met Jebi and Yunsoo at a yoga class (in 2016) held by our common French friend. The class was cancelled because our friend fell sick and we had to force her to go to a clinic. I eventually lost touch with her, but, Jebi and Yunsoo are still my dear friends till date.

Everything was yellow. We sat for a bit and I didn’t feel like leaving yet. Out of nowhere, we got a call from our building realtor about a couple who wanted to look at our rental apartment. The process of hunting apartments is quite fast in Seoul and it had barely been a week since we had informed our landlord that we were leaving. He was a sweet ahjusshi (meaning older man) who hadn’t increased the rent in the pandemic and coaxed us to stay.

We got a bit lost in the woods. We needed to either find a subway station or a place from where we could book a cab. We really didn’t know where we were going, but this time, it was not as enjoyable because we had to reach our apartment.

We made it out of the maze of autumnal trees and muddy trails to an abandoned street. Thankfully, the taxi app made it easy to find transportation back to our apartment. We’d have to wait for another weekend to explore another section of the wall — in our farewell series of Seoul.