Springtime in Korea; Trekking and Tromping

Cherry blossoms near the riverside in Yecheon

Ji Hye and I take an afternoon trip out to the small farming village she grew up in.  It's small and quiet enough that when we arrived an old woman near the taxi we were getting out of cried: "oh, looks like we've got a special guest here today!"

A statue of King Sejong, who created the Korean alphabet, Hangul, sits in front of the now-closed elementary school.  Children from the village now attend classes in a more populous area.

The old slide evidently still sees lots of use from children in the village.  These girls are all sisters.

Gangwon-do: Chiaksan National Park (치악산국립 공원)

After departing Sokcho we were bound for Pyeongchang, future home of the 2018 Winter Olympics.  Pyeongchang's claim to fame is a large ski resort called Alpensia where the Games will be hosted six years from now (Pyeongchang was finally awarded the games, to much elation, after two unsuccessful bids in the past).  We weren't planning on skiing on this trip (though I have gone twice in Gangwon-do this winter at a great resort called Vivaldi), so we didn't so much as glimpse Alpensia on our long trip down the expressway cutting Southwestwards towards Pyeongchang town itself.

Pyeongchang town's river

Actually I should be clear: we didn't do very much research on Pyeongchang (my draw to it initially was simply the fact that it had been recently awarded the Olympics), and thought that the capital of the county was actually a  city.  We were a little bit surprised when our bus pulled in to a very small station with no buildings insight, by a sign indicating that we'd indeed reached our destination.  We found ourselves in a very small place.  A few minutes later another foreign teacher approached us on the street and informed us we were on the main drag.  Then and there Brent and I decided that we'd stay for a little while longer and see what we could and then make for the city of Wonju in the evening.  We ended up crossing the town's resident river and climbing a hiking path up the hill on the other side.  At the top we were able to take it the whole city which was actually quite a lovely, rustic looking place nestled in the hills.  Korean totem poles, called Jangseung (장승), carved traditionally as village guardians, abounded along the river front.

Up to Speed

If you’ve been reading any of the posts previous to this one, I’ll inform you here that although they were written during my years in Japan (save for The Haunted Islands), they’ve all been pre-dated to their appropriate times of completion upon uploading to my blog, which was only established recently this year.  As lengthy as some of them were, I consider them to, for the most part, be somewhat shallow representations of my time in the country as they are concerned mostly with periods of travelling rather than with people, my work, everyday life, etc .  Be that as it may, I felt they remained fitting documents to form a sort of foundation for this blog, effectively bring me up to speed to where I am now.