Here is the first thing I see when I step outside my door, it's Norebang :D For those of you unfamiliar with the term a Norebang is a singing room where people drink and are merry. If you come to Korea and have Korean friends or anyone familiar with the culture, you are sure to go to one of these. Probably one of the most important parts of bonding here, next to eating and drinking, is Norebang (do NOT call it karaoke. It'd be worse than insulting someone's mother).
I am literally taking you on a time-line tour of my home :D Here is the Cafe at the end of my street, it's super cute and always blasting super chill music. They are very serious about their cafes here, so much so that if you walk/drive around, you are likely to see a Barista school. I'm not sure why they love cafes so much, but I would say that within a one mile radius of my house there are about ten, maybe more that I haven't found yet.
Here is part of the lovely mural outside of my house. It starts at the far end of the street you can see here, and runs all the way to the main road. I just like this part because the first day i was out there were approx. all of the bikers biking past and the coincidence of the situation struck me.
One of the many beautiful brick buildings in my town. Many of the buildings have cool designs on the side of them, especially nature themes designs. Much like this tree...and...diamond pattern :D
Walked about for a while, down some alleyways and side streets with vendors until I came across this little fenced off area. My guess is that it's being protected from destruction by that little blue fence, and possibly some very nasty government documents saying things like "...under the penalty of the law...", because everything else around are businesses or apartment complexes. Either way, it was very interesting to see a piece of history just hanging out in the middle of town.
Another part of my exploration about town was the discovery of a river walk right by my home. Oh, and if you can't see that area off to the right clearly, that's an outdoor gym, 100% free, open 24/7, 365. But the walk is probably my favorite and I'll explain why.
Yes, there is a pretty tree along the walk, but it's not really THE reason I love this river walk so much. The tree is like a perfect halfway point to the walk. It seems to describe how I've been seeing Korea so far. In the foreground you have this piece of nature, gnarled and haggard, but organic and real; and in the background you have the structures, artificial and constructed, planned and formed by humanity. I don't know if it's more a dichotomy or just a different way to see life and shared space. Either way, that was probably far too insightful for even my own good, but let's keep the ball rolling shall we?
When I got to the end of the path, after about a half an hour walk, this is what I came to. The rice fields and marshes stretched out for miles in front of me and disappeared up in between the mountains, circling them like one of those Christmas tree skirts you put down to keep the pine needles from getting you carpet all messy. This wasn't what made the walk one of my favorites so far, it would come after I stood there for a while just looking out at the marshes and trying to get a good shot of one of the HUGE cranes poking about.
And when I turned around to go home this was all I could see.
Maybe it's cheesy, a sunset photo, but being there in that moment was perfect. I was alone, not a single living person in sight. The crickets were starting to come out as a light breeze brushed over the fields cooling the air to a temperature that just barely touched Fall. It wasn't the hokey idea of a romantic sunset that made this evening perfect, but rather the notion that this moment came naturally.
Well, there are my adventures thus far, more to come soon, including an update about more exploring! Until next time, I hope the world is kind :D
-Sara
ugh, PS sorry about the typos and bad punctuation, and good luck reading it that way. Not feeling like fixing it :D
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