Snowfall

It was nice to finally get some snow today that stuck around (for most of the day, at least).

The kids were certainly having fun today...

Guerrillas in the snow

While running errands yesterday, I remembered that I'd received a nice pair of thinsulate leather gloves last year for Christmas, and when I got home I dug them out and put them in my bag so they'd be on hand if I needed them. Good timing!

While the snowfall was only three inches, for Seoul that's quite a lot (an apparently has been for a long time). And it was certainly enough for the students to enjoy:

While I'd worn the gloves while hiking before, they'd never been in contact with snow much. As it turns out, after throwing 100+ snowballs and making a couple snowmen, they were still dry inside. I don't imagine the kids without gloves would have been very comfortable when they got inside and their hands began to thaw, though the more creative ones made due with dustpans which they used to scoop up and throw snow. I was impressed by the guerrilla tactics of a quartet of grade 3 girls who would wait until I had my back turned and then would close in and send off a volley of snowballs all together before running off in different directions, only to regroup for another sneak attack once my back was turned. Not bad for a bunch of 9 year olds, but then, considering the quasi-military drilling a gym class involves (and all the marching that is flawlessly executed at sports festivals), perhaps not so surprising, either. Give them the training these girls got and they'd be a formidable force...

Dobongsan

A couple weeks ago I hiked Dobongsan with a friend. The last (and first) time I'd gone was in 2001. On the way up there were a lot of birds. Crows, magpies, and quite a few of these (I'm not sure what it is, though I am quite certain it was not a pigeon!):


There were chickadees (I saw some, and heard their call) as well as these little guys (not a great photo):


As we went along the ridge, we reached a spot with this view (a close up is at the top of this post), which made the hike well worth it.


Worth it even though it soon turned very difficult. It had been raining throughout the day, and suddenly the temperature dropped, it began to snow, and the muddy trails began to freeze and become slippery - just like the rock slopes next to 30 meter drops.


What should have been a three hour or so hike turned out quite a bit longer, and it took a few days to recover. Never made it to the top of the highest peak like I did last time I went, but did get a nice photo of it, at least...

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?

I had just finished the last post and the title popped into my head, based on this poem by Francois Villon (arguably France's best medieval poet, who seemed equally happy making allusions to classical figures as writing about his exploits in bars and brothels, and also someone who escaped the gallows for murder and theft). Translated, the line 'Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?' means 'But where are the snows of bygone years' (quoted in such different places as Tennessee William's Glass Menagerie and Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds). The point? After writing the title and posting the post, I looked outside.


I'm sure what's fallen in the last hour will be more than Seoul will get all year, unfortunately. Because hey, if it's gonna be cold, you might as well have snow. As it turns out though, Seoul's lack of snow isn't anything new. As Percival Lowell wrote of his visit to Seoul in 1884:

Owing to the latitude of Soul, thirty-seven and a half degrees north, the sun's power there, even in midwinter, is so great that the snow at the sea-level never lies deep upon the ground. After a heavy snow-storm, the evening before, it is surprising to those accustomed to more northern latitudes to notice how quickly it vanishes in places exposed to the sun. If it were not for repeated additions, there would be very little even in the depth of winter; and as the season advances and the days lengthen, you may trudge homeward some night through a heavy fall of snow, to find on the next afternoon no trace of it left. You have therefore, almost simultaneously, the coming of snow, like a snow-storm in New York, with a disappearance of it worthy of Virginia ; and yet it may be far colder on the day it vanishes than on the day it appeared.

I guess the lack of snow explains why people my age remember using spent yontan to roll into snowballs to make a snowman when they were young...