Just wait till you experience spring in Korea
All year long I heard from staff and my new-found Korean friends that spring was an amazing time of year here in South Korea. Well, their claims were true. Come March I sure enjoyed the welcome-warm temperatures and the blossoming trees were enough to stop me in my tracks.
One Sunday afternoon I hopped in the van with a few staff from TCIS to drive along a well-known stretch that is famous during spring time. From Daejeon, we drove east toward the town of Okchon and then through the mountains along the river, eventually leading to Lake Kum-gong. We couldn't have asked for a better day -- it was shorts and t-shirt weather and the blossoms were in full bloom.
In many ways the afternoon reminded me of the drives I used to take through the Colorado Rockies when living in Denver. Koreans love to fish just like North Americans but they know how to do it in style... just check out this fishing shack along the river.
There are other differences from my drives in Colorado as well, most notably in the small towns we visited along the way, construction of buildings (an example of a mud house shown here), road signs (self-explanatory even if you don't read Korean), vegetation and the lack of Mexican restaurants =)
It dawned on me into the afternoon that Koreans often work their fields by hand... something you rarely see anymore in the west. The rural areas of Korea are still very much agrigarian where older farming methods are mixed in with the new. You can easily see a tractor and a hand cart in the same field! Click on the next image to enlarge for a better view of the person working in the field...
And what's a Sunday afternoon drive without stopping at a picnic area for lunch? The 'shelter' would not exactly prevent us from getting wet if it rained because it was constructed of branches and logs, but it sure fit in nice with the surrounding.
