Pictures of Dogye on a Clear Day

Yesterday Melanie and I completed the traverse of the long ridge on the west side of Dogye. It was a beautiful, clear day, and warm for this time of year. Here are some pics:


This is our town, Dogye! Just to the left of the seam is the campus of our elementary school:


From left to right the buildings are: kindergarten, gymnasium, administration and grades 2, 3 and 6, the dirt field, and grades 1, 4 and 5 plus the Dogye English Experience Center, which looks closer to opening every day - very exciting!


Melanie about to cast a spell on me from an "improvement" to the trail. It's too bad they build these things, it would've been a nice 3rd class traverse without them, but Koreans love their metal staircases.


From the high vantage point on the ridge, we realized just how close we are to Taebaek, the big city just down the road... as the crow flies anyway. A couple weeks ago we took a cab from Taebaek out to this special agricultural zone and windfarm.


A Korean grave...


And its setting. Not a bad place to be buried, eh?


Playing in the leaves like a couple of little kids.


On our way out we crossed the river just below the major coal mine that operates in town. Of all the towns in Gangwon-do, we were placed in the one with two of Korea's three active coal mines. Anyway, don't drink the water.


We passed a couple of awesome sounding restaurants on our way home. This one is Appricca.


And Smoper. Did they kidnap Papa Smurf and dye him green?

Hike Above Our New Home

When I move to a new town, I make it a priority to get some perspective as quickly as possible by climbing the hills surrounding the place. When I moved to Boulder and climbed the beautiful red rocks above Settlers Park, I remember thinking I can't imagine living on flatland where you couldn't climb above and look down on town. Since 2000, I've lived in California, Colorado and Korea and those have suited me just fine.

So last weekend, our first in this town, I looked out my window and found the biggest hill beside town, found a valley next to and started walking up it. I ran into several groups of students on the way to the hike, and then one with his family on the trail. It feels great to be living in the same place we're working, to be (in some few ways) part of a community. On the other hand, when I went to buy water at the convenience store under our apartment after work in my sweats and ran into two students in the store, I was a little less excited about community and more worried about privacy. Similarly yesterday when we ran into a student 50 meters from our apartment and he followed us like a lost puppy into our building, the concerns trumped the satisfaction.

Anyway, here are some pictures from the hike, of our new home, Dogye Village of Samcheok County of Gangwon Province of the Republic of Korea. If it's a bit hazy, that's because there was a fire just a valley over two days before. Helicopters overhead all day, but no serious damage done.

Dogye from above. Our apartment is on the left, the highest of the cluster of six large buildings. That valley that we back up to is this weekend.

This is the industry that keeps this region breathing (and warm during the winter... there are actual bricks of coal all over the place. They get them delivered to burn for heat).

Here are some dogs that I can only assume are being kept for food. To be honest, I feel only marginally worse for these creatures than I do for the millions of pics and cows kept all over the world for food, in the United States usually in much worse conditions than these dogs.

Persimmons are everywhere this time of year, a dime a dozen, if you will. When the leaves blow off the trees, leaving the orange bulbs alone with the dark brown branches, it's really quite a site. I'll have to work on getting a better shot of it than this.

And a reflexology footpath, in the shape of a foot, at the bottom of the valley. They're huge on reflexology here (it's a Traditional Chinese Medicine thing). The idea, as best I understand it, is that you walk on the stone paths barefoot to stimulate the points on the bottom of your feet to enhance the flow of qi. We just got a path in front of our school, which we've taken to using after lunch, until we're dragged away by the raucous group of second grade girls that kidnaps us to the playground everyday.

The Little Differences

Melanie and I found a great hike just behind our apartment today. So much is the same in the US and Korea, and probably all developed countries - cars and buildings and commerce and marketing and friends and meals and love and struggle. But especially in nature, and especially between Gangwondo and Colorado - both being on the 38th parallel and both being mountainous, so much is the same. But there are also tons of differences, often in the details, and I'm trying to take note of them. Today they seemed to be popping out everywhere, and I had my camera with me, so without further rambling, here are some of the differences you might find on a Sunday afternoon hike in Gangwon-do, Korea as compared with Colorado, USA.

Cars parked on sidewalks (and motorbikes driving on sidewalks... Grrr.)


Enclosed trampolines by the side of the street that kids can pay to play on (a nice alternative to the ubiquitous and ever so popular "PC room").


Weird, unidentified pink fruit...


...that sometimes looks an awful lot like a turkey's head!


Spiky poof balls. Update: We asked a co-teacher, and it turns out these are chestnuts! The nuts grow inside these spiky balls on trees. Now if we can just figure out how to pick and open them safely.


Giant bat-moth-hummingbird creatures.


Lounge chairs on top of a mountain's ridge.


Signs in the wilderness (or this level of confusion from your partner!).


And my favorite, ubiquitous agriculture. This deserves its own post... they grow food everywhere! South Korea is a tiny country (smaller than Virginia) supporting a medium sized population (50 million people) and a gigantic economy (the 13th largest in the world). I heard someone say recently that self-sufficiency in food production is an essential component of national security. Well, Korea is working this one to the max. Between every apartment and sidewalk there are pumpkin vines and pepper plants, next to every parking lot is a plot of onions or soybeans. It's inspiring. I hope that by next spring we will know enough Korean to get involved in cultivating the land with the locals. What better a way to build community, self-reliance and security in the face of an increasingly unstable global order.