Today was a gorgeous day to walk along the back roads to Yang Yang, a small market town south of Sokcho. Paul and I set off around 11:30 and walked about three hours through woods, fields, and small farming towns.
I really love to get out into rural Korea where the people are always nice and eager to talk, even with a couple of waygooks like us.
The whole trip was fairly short as far as hikes go, we were at our destination about three hours after setting out but it was worth it to get out and enjoy some nature before the monsoon rains come and then the horrible humidity.
Along the way we were both impressed with how green the country looked. Everywhere you turn in Korea right now the hills and fields are alive with the green colour that we were hardly able to see through the long brown winter. Now the fields are filled with new rice plants busily growing in a thin film of water and flowers are busily blooming in every nook and cranny, there are so many flowers that every time you take a breath the air reeks of honeysuckle and myriad other flowers that I cannot name.
Pictures
1. A nice country road, who knows what is around the bend?
2. An old tower of some sort, here for a very long time. It could be an old watch tower, maybe a beacon tower for signalling, but its use was probably much more mundane. It was probably some sort of grain storage.
3. An old abandoned house that we found in, literally, the middle of nowhere. We walked up and looked inside but it had been totally cleaned out.
4. And now for something truly differ ant, a herd of goats that appeared out of nowhere.