A Drive Through The Countryside

Occasionally I find that the toughest thing to see in a country when you're visiting it is the country itself. It's easy to get lost in the cities, wind up at tourist attractions or stay somewhere nice and relaxing like your room/hotel/the beach. Last weekend 7 of us got together, rented a van, and went on what was originally planned as a photography roadtrip - a chance to see some great scenery and get some really nice pictures. Shannon and I, being a little challenged in the photography know-how department, came along for the chance to see parts of Korea we'd never otherwise see.

We started by heading up to Gwangju to meet everyone. Shannon and I (along with Miso, who's now become a rather permanent part of our family here in Korea) caught the early bus up on Saturday morning, and after a slow breakfast and getting packed up, we hit the road. If you look on the map I've added here, you can see the path we took. From Mokpo, we went to Gwangju, then traveled east halfway to Suncheon. From there we went south-east until reaching Suncheon,then down to the water where we spent the night. The next day we went south to Wando and puttered about some of the islands down there before heading back to Gwangju, then returning to Mokpo.


The first shot here is a little weir we stopped at along the road. You can probably make out some to the old ladies (or "ajumas" as we call them) fishing in the background. Prior to this we went to an old steam-locomotive museum where you can actually ride the train. Unfortunately it wasn't running for a few more hours, so we had to settle for riding around in one of the push-pedal carts.

I'm not sure what time of the season it was in terms of harvest, but the rice workers were out in full force working the fields. Some of them were starting to burn the crops from the year, so I think they had just completed the harvest not too long ago. Old men and women were all over the place though, hunched over doing some kind of work in the mud.

One of the most memorable sights we saw was a Korean motorcycle gang on the side of the road. The called themselves "Club Shadow" and they even had business cards to hand out to people (not sure what for, maybe just cause it made them seem a little more elite). You may be able to make out a few of the unusual getups they're wearing, though my favourite was definitely the fake tattoos some of them had. I've been told that in Korea, not only are tattoos fairly taboo, but they may also be illegal. Seems a little odd, but one of the guys here actually had sort of an upper-body nylon on that was meant to look like tattoos all down his arms. And despite the fact it was us who approached them to say hi and take pictures, they quickly took over and tried to get as many pictures of us as they could as well, even making sure Miso was in the photo too.

We stopped at one of Korea's largest (or most famous maybe, I'm not sure which) tea plantation. This one was up the side of the hill, and as you can see here as I smuggle Miso in, dogs weren't allowed to come. But he made it through the gate, and we got some great photos of the tea fields.




After, we traveled by boat to some of the small islands around the area, and stopped at the beach for a swim. The dog and I were the only ones who managed to get right in and swim in the water, though poor Miso was not the least bit excited about swimming and only did so after being set down 15 feet off the shore. He did great though.

After that, we stopped for lunch and went back home. Hopefully you've enjoyed a more photographic blog entry this week, and my apologies to any regular readers who've noticed a slight lapse in my ability to get a new blog out every week. School's been a little crazy the past few weeks, but I should be back to some form of normality now. Thanks for reading!