The autumn colors were on full display. I would be heading to Kyoto in the late November after climbing Mt. Seoraksan and Mt. Odaesan of Korea if things were normal. This time is different. I suggested to my friends that we should go to Hwadam botanic garden near Seoul at least. My friends responded positively and we set a date. A few years ago I heard that Gonjiam, though I haven’t read about it in newspaper, was popular. I guess I was the only one who didn’t know that, as when I went to Gonjiam I found people making several lines for a ticket. The 500-meter track at the bottom of the mountain, the autumn colors and the pine tree garden were beautiful. I heard that the trail was over 5 km, but it was like walking along the flatland as the slope was gentle. By this time of the year, I would walk along that trail. I was admiring and thankful that Korea had a forest like this, that they left nothing to be desired, and that if someone visited to see me from abroad this would be the place to show them. I heard Koo Bonmoo, the Chairman of LG group, personally built this. I could see that he poured all his energy and devotion into this. How thankful is it that he built it and made it public to everyone. I did think that it would have been better if they tried less hard and made it less artificial and more natural, but the time, cost, anguish and devotion that were generously poured into this were admirable. And two years, two autumns later, on the last day of October, feathery clouds in the blue sky were showing how deep and high the sky was. With the dazzlingly blue sky as the background, bright autumn colors were striking. It felt like it was welcoming me, saying it missed me and that it was a miracle that I could stand up and walk like this. I heard that the number of the maple variety in Hwadam botanic garden amounted to 400. The woods were filled with people exhausted from Covid-19 all year, who were merrily walking or riding monorails. They had 17 themed gardens. I was surprised that they were adding a bonsai garden and a birch forest. This year, they planted a million chrysanthemums, befitting this season, and I could see the Five-story Stone Pagoda of Jeongnimsa Temple Site of the 7th century Baekje and the stone lantern of Beopjusa Temple of the 8th century Silla. I knew that it took tremendous work to create a garden which included making roads here and there at the bottom of the high mountain, planting several varieties of trees, and carrying tremendously heavy stones, but maintaining the forest was no less work. I kept saying this as we walked and made turns: “How did they move these many rocks? How did they plant, fertilize, maintain, and take care of a million flowers and trees every season? It must have been a lot of work!” One of my friends, after enduring this for a while, responded: “You are mean that we should be thinking of who built the spring as drinking the spring water?” That is right. We have seen many things both within and outside the country; but often we would miss appreciating the endeavor behind them. On the way back, a round sign which says ‘Hwadam Botanic gGrden’ a sign that I missed on my way up, shows the face of Chairmain Koo Bonmoo who cultivated the woods. It was long time ago. Graduates of Ewha Woman's University would be handed a yearbook containing pictures of 6000 graduates. The black and white pictures were dim and the size of a thumbnail so that the faces were barely visible. The Chairman Koo Jakyung, the father of Chairman Koo Bonmoo circled 10 times around my picture in that album as a potential daughter-in-law and visited me with his secretary. I wasn’t prepared for things like that as I just graduated, but that old secretary came to my house every day after that. The son came from the U.S. a little after that, and I went to the U.S. to study. Coming back to Korea after 20 years, I bumped into them with whom a matter of marriage was mentioned in a gathering or a forum once or twice in this small city, but I never faced the Chairman Koo. He died at a relatively young age in 2018 and left himself as a stunningly beautiful woods. His pen name is Hwadam. | 
