Discovery Sunday: Greenie-green in my Backyard

After my first week in Concrete-Land, aka Korea, I mentioned that I needed some nature, stat.  Come to find out?  Easy to do in Ulsan.

I am able to walk to Mt. Munsu from my front door, which is pretty dagnab nice.  It's a definite hike once you get all up in its face - steep at a lot of points.  I also probably should have made it more clear to my group that I enjoy mini-explorations during hikes.  I kept sneaking off down hidden trails to take a look at things and then would have to run up the steep-as-hell hill to catch the marathon hikers.  My lungs hated me and I missed out on a lot of views and secret spots that I would have explored otherwise.  But here's the beauty:  it's so accessible that I can go back and explore at an explorer's pace any time I want.  And I will.

I also made a discovery today just outside my window.  First, allow me to introduce my window:

It is super bright in my apartment at all times.  Unbearably bright.  I'm a big fan of natural light and will soak it up until I'm essentially sitting in a cave before I'll turn on a light, so it's hard for me to admit that I can't handle this.  But.  My eyes scream at me every morning at 5am.  I think the fogged window screen adds an absurd amount of super glow.  Or something.  My solution to dim the super glow resulted in the above picture.  It's still bright at 5am, but the happy paper helps.

Outside the now happy paper'ed window are these:

Where do they go???

The mystery has nagged me since Day 1.  Today I found out:

At the top is what is now known as Kate's Zen Pad.  I can see myself using this a lot: for lunch, with my laptop, with a book, with my ipod.  This = incredible discovery.

And there's my apartment building from the tippy top.  I thought that this was it, a perfectly placed Zen Pad behind my apartment for my convenience.  Until I noticed more steps going down the other side.  Whaaaat??  Don't mind if I do:

What could be at the bottom?

A rock'ish garden with strategically placed work out equipment, of course! 

Even more steps led me to...

...An adorable bench-laden trail!

Then I took a wrong turn and landed here and got mad at myself.

But I promptly righted that wrong and found this garden and loved myself again.

Then, I thought I was home and taking a picture of my cute street.

But, turns out hills go both ways, I was on the wrong side, and this is my cute street.

In any case, Discovery Sunday = success.

Also, HAPPY HAPPY Father's Day to the one and only Old Man Pops.  Me and M'bro are basically spectacular because of you.  Miss you so, so muchly on this side of the pond, OMP.