Wondong seasons #1: A walk through Wondong in early spring

This is a retrospective (i know that is probably a slightly wrong word, but you know what i mean) on my neighbourhood here. I've been fascinated with it since I got here, because it has all the conveniences of a modern city (minus a great night-live), and yet I am surrounded by rice, goju (red peppers), corn, many types of greens ect. + the people who grow them. I watch (half the size of the Korean's my age) sun-baked Koreans work in the fields every day as I walk to and from my work, and through the months I have watched everything grow. In the last few weeks the goju has been harvested (is still being harvested), and dried, the corn has also been harvested, as well as greens, and other plants, and they are now beginning to harvest, and process the rice. It is so interesting I want to stand and watch all these processes, but I also don't want to be rude, so I never stay as long as I would like to.

The first installment in this retrospective is spring. I'll take you on a walk through my neighbourhood.

From the park by my house through a tree:



About 15 minute walk from my house on the way to the woods. People working in the fields getting ready for the growing season.


I don't know what all the plastic is for, but systems here are very efficient and nothing is wasted (especially systems concerning use of space). As I watched the crops grow in Wondong I realised that in one plot of land every square inch was used (and not all for the same thing).


Up in the woods:


I've walked through a number of woods in Korea now, and even if you wack your way through (the woods by my house aren't really used by many people to walk in so you have to make your own path) you will always come across man-made clearing up on the top of hills, covered in graves. In general Korean's like to live in valley's, but when they die they always seem to move up into the hills. It's kind of nice, because there are many small graveyards tucked away in strange places. Really the opposite of how Korean's live (in apartment blocks, within large communities very close together). I find the graveyards here very peaceful.



Coming down from the forest, Looking through a field into Wondong:


A woman working in the field (about a 3 minute walk from my house). Notice the building block behind her. She is as small and old as she looks. Most of the people working in the fields are over 50, and under 5 feet tall.


I think this is what is left of the rice from last year (i'm not sure)


Because they turn it, and then it looks like this:


This house is an important image to me (i will include it in later pictures). It is a massive converted barn (I think, because it has hardly any windows, and the ones it does have are very small). The bottom of the house is a shed for all of the farm equipment), and the top is a house were people live. It looms over the small amount of farmland in Wondong. It is so huge, and so country, it looks completely out of place next to the apartment blocks, either like it once overlooked the ocean, but the ocean dried up, or like it used to be surrounded by an endless prairie landscape, and was quickly encroached upon by apartment blocks. I guess the later is more plausable, but when you see the house in all it's glory you will think the ocean dried up too.


to be continued........