Tuesday" Adventures

This morning, David sent me out on my own to explore.  The only way to learn about the neighbourhood is to explore it on your own, he said.  And that makes sense, though it was quite intimidating.  All the apartment buildings look exactly alike, and every street looks just like all the others.  If I didn't get back in one hour, he would look for me at the big, tall, blue building (the post office).  Well, I didn't get lost.  But I sure had to  find landmarks and memorize them.  (One of his friends told me that he had just moved into a building near David one evening in the dark, and the next day he went out to make a purchase.  He could not find his way back home, and had been wandering around for quite a while, when David just happened to meet him with his car.  The 2 of them drove around for quite some time again before he finally recognized his own building!).

The apartment buildings are all quite close together, and all look alike.  They do have names, but it is all in Korean writing, and I'm not very fluent in that !  There are a few spaces that are still vacant, and often there will be gardens planted in them:

I didn't recognize all the plants growing there.  I did see corn, beans and radishes, but I don't know what the other plants were growing there.  They were very well taken care of.  I don't know if they were maintained by the tenants in the apartment buildings, or who looked after them.

 And there were many vacant lots that looked just like this:

There is a lot of construction going on in Jeonju, and David says that most of the vacant lots (and garden plots too) will be used to build more apartment buildings.

There is a small parkette close to his place, and there is some playground equipment as well as work-out equipment.  But here too, the grass is not maintained well, and there is garbage everywhere.  For some reason, there are very few garbage bins in public spaces.

Since everyone lives in these apartment buildings, they do need playgrounds for the children.  There are groups of buildings like this everywhere, no matter where you look.  There are mountains (large hills) all around Jeonju, and so to make more space, they have actually removed some of these "mountains"!  It reminded me so much of where Jesus says, "If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you can move mountains."  Well, these people in Jeonju move mountains, but I don't think that is exactly what Jesus meant!

 This afternoon, David took me for a drive out of the big city.  Wherever they can find some space, they grow crops--mostly rice. 

 They have had to terrace the land so they can use it more efficiently.

 Outside of Jeonju, we drove into some real mountains!  The pictures don't do it justice, because it ws quite hazy outside, especially higher up.

 

 More terracing in the mountains.

 

 A lookout gazebo--to see an absolutely majestic view.  The gazebo was quite the building too.  All the steps and the floors were made of marble!

 Right by the observation tower, there were these carvings of birds.  I don't know what the significance of them was, but it quite neat to see them.  Each pole and bird was carved from one piece of wood.

 As we were descending the mountain, we could see small villages in the valleys.

It's my third day of travelling around here, and already the city doesn't look quite so foreign to me as it did on Sunday.  However, I don't know how anyone can find their way around here.  Most of the streets are not square!  And they all look the same!

The cars here are really interesting.  Pretty much all vehicles are white, grey or black.  There are very few other colours here.

I had lunch today with David's friends again.  We went to Jeonju Diner--owned by David Van Minnen.  It was nice to meet him.  I'd heard so much about him--he helped David settle in when he first arrived 8 years ago.  And it was nice to eat a meal that I could recognize--chicken burritos and cole slaw--and eat with a fork and knife!

Last night we had the most interesting dinner.  Sam gyup sal.  There were about 10 of us around 2 tables.  In the centre of each table was a gas grill.  The waiter brought the meat (thinly sliced pork) with LOTS of side dishes, and we cooked the meat at the table.  They don't use knifes here to cut the meat--each table got a pair of scissors with long blades, and cut the meat into pieces with that.  It worked very well.

David has a great group of friends.  They have all been very welcoming, and I have enjoyed them very much.

Well, we're off to an Italian place for dinner tonight!