The story starts before I even boarded a plane. It started with my physical capabilities and how I didn't think I could do it. While researching for my trip, I saw other people raving about how cool the fortress was, and I got envious (follow the envy), but I didn't think I could physically manage with my out-of-shapeness and my fear of heights.
The fear of heights lives in my core and my muscles, while the fear of fitness lived in my mind and my breathing. For sure the fitness one spoke first, telling me I couldn't walk that much or climb that much, that I'd fail. My fear of heights hijacked my posture and my legs, seizing up as I lifted my foot to climb the first step. The heights fear hit at two points, the initial stairs to even get on the fortress wall and the climb up the mountain, while my fitness fear hit before I even approached, and on the climb up the mountain as well.
Hwaseong dominates the landscape of Suwon, so when I arrived by train it existed in my mind. The weather ran glorious, not too hot, windy under blue skies. I set out in the morning fresh from a good night's sleep and a delicious breakfast of a brisket toast.
The first hurdle: a series of stone stairs scaling the massive entrance gates, each step the height of my entire calf to my knee, and no guard rail either. But I made it up that first hurdle, and at that point I started thinking maybe I can do this. Albert Bandura wrote in 1977 that nothing builds a person's belief in their own capability like having done the thing once already, and that persisting through an activity that feels dangerous and mostly isn't raises the belief further and shrinks the flinch.
Walking at my own pace around the whole inner town of Suwon felt heavenly: I got to test my new iPhone camera's zoom and watched townspeople fly kites from across the town interior. I sat and drank my water and ate my sweet treat, inspecting all the traffic and security cameras in a single crossing and glancing at the mountain stairs with trepidation.
That was the strange thing: I had nothing to hold onto. No rails, and I'd tucked my water bottle in a reusable shopping bag over my shoulder. The only thing out at times was my phone, but even then I had it in my back pocket most of the time so I could use my hands to balance. I had to psych myself up to start walking those ancient steps up the side of the mountain, but I did, having learned from the initial stairs that I could do hard things.
These steps presented a different challenge, mindnumbing numbers along with uneven, shallow treads; I did have to stop and calm my racing heart a couple of times, as it felt like being on the more dangerous metro escalators, where there were just so many steps and they felt endless and constantly oncoming. Fortunately I could remind myself the steps weren't endless, and I could stop in my tracks. My greatest fear of falling backwards pressed closer as the elevation grew. I could look behind me alllll the way down to where I started after psyching myself up at the crossing.
When I started up the side of the mountain, I almost told myself I couldn't do it and that I should just go back down. But I wanted to see the view from the top, and to prove to myself I could do it, so I kept going. I took breaks, and froze, even though ajummas were barreling around me. I panted in my anxiety, and sweat as I allowed my muscles to lock up, and then, after what felt like a small eternity, I took a deep breath, exhaled, and continued. The freeze happened at least twice, if not three times. I also told myself it's okay if I want to go back down; I'd seen quite a bit of the wall already. I told myself it's okay to not push through, but that if I thought it wouldn't kill me to keep going, I could see the view from the top like everyone else around me, and like the bloggers had too. I told myself it might be life changing to do it, but that it was okay if I couldn't.
But once I made it to the peak, the view was so gorgeous. Many people sat at the structure at the top, and I sat there too for a while, gazing out at the city. I even climbed what I think was a crossbow turret, the highest publicly accessible point (cue more calf-high stairs with no railing; what a core workout).
The descent scared me far less, and I felt almost high with delight at accomplishing my ascent. I stopped under one gate's arch and sat on a bench, admiring the painted ceiling above me and the kites flying outside (the very same I had spied earlier through my camera zoom across the way). I marveled at how I could do hard things, even when it scared me, and sipped my water, and felt my mind go blissfully blank. I sat there feeling euphoric. After a while I set about getting on the train back to Seoul to make it to my hostel by evening, and the high lasted all the way through going to bed that night.
Now I remind myself that I can do hard things even when it scares me, that doing the hard thing can be life changing, and that it's okay if I can't in that exact moment, as long as I agree to try again later.
Why my fitness doubts took over my breathing, rather than the fear of heights, I can guess: with the fitness, I fear failing, and any minute signs of failure triggered my panic, which then controlled my breathing. How I'd come to fear hard things at all, I still wonder.