fall colours

On our Saturday drive we got to check out some amazing fall colours, these will most probably not be the last pictures of changing leaves that I will post.

driving at night

The first night that we had the car Ruthie and I headed out for a little night drive. It was kind of a special trip for us because we could get out and see things in Sokcho that we would be unable to find and look at closely without a car.
First we headed up into the mountains above Miseryong tunnel, the main road to Seoul to a little observation platform that overlooks our town. From up at about four thousand feet we could see the entire plain of Sokcho, the lights blinking in the distance and the sea a black quilt reaching out from the shore, where the lights ended, it was pretty cool.
From there we went down the mountain, a very twisty winding road, and headed over to Hwamsaa Temple, a place that I had been many times before but which takes on a new beauty during the night when no one is there.
After some quick pictures and a close look at the usually closed bell pavilion we decided to end our trip at a small building built on a low hill overlooking the sea.
1-3, These are pictures of the bell tower at Hwamsaa after I had figured out how to work my camera
4. The pavilion by the sea, the lights change colours from red, to blue, to black.

sorak festival

Well its festival time again and in between the m
Mushroom Festival and the Salmon Festival is sandwiched the Sorak Festival. I had been to this festival last year and won some North Korean soju shooting at targets in the shooting gallery and really wanted to duplicate my feat this year.
The festival started on Thursday and ran through Sunday but it was on Saturday that Ruthie, Paul, Aubrey, Rachel and I headed out to enjoy the festivities.
We started out strolling through all the concessions, doing the shooting gallery, and checking out the vast array of stupid shit for sale for a dollar before setting down to the nights cuisine, roast pork done on a spit, awesome!
After that we headed through the fire walkers, some sort of clowns, and screwed around watching the fortune teller before heading home through the bonzi trees. Well some of us headed home, Ruthie and I went out for cocktails but that is a whole differant story.
Pictures.....
1 and 2 some very cool banzi trees
3. I am getting pretty good with my new camera. Here is a picture of the fireworks that I took just by accident.
4. The view from my roof at night
5. Paul pontificating about the rather poor performance of the fireworks.

The Salmon Festival

I love the salmon festival, good times, fish, crazy girls, lots of drinks and good food, I mean what can possibly go wrong? Well, this year, unlike last year, it can get really fucking cold.
Saturday dawned windy, clear, and chill, perfect weather to wade into an ice cold river and catch large fish with your hands. Despite a minor setback or two the fisher people managed to get ready and registered for the four o'clock dunking and after that we had a few hours to head out and check out the festival.
First on the order of business, at least for me and Ruthie was to head over to a tent we spied earlier selling cold beer and big steaming bowls of mussels. After eating and drinking for a bit we headed out and saw a very amusing musical act doing some weird Korean version of classic Abba.
Finally, after kicking it around for a while it was time for the real event to start, the fishing.
With a bang on a pot, the crowd of people surged off of the gravel bank and headed out to the river, towards the rippling ribbons of water where the dorsal fins of scores of salmon cut through the windswept water.
It was over in a few minutes. I am proud to say that the first person to cross the bridge connecting the rocky starting point with the river bank was my girl with the biggest fish, and after her straggled Paul, Aubrey, and Toby, with everyones fish getting progressively smaller.
After we went to the tent to have their fish inked and pressed on to rice paper, a priceless memento, we headed back to Ruthies where I got to clean three very nice salmon. A great day.

Pictures-
1. If you are to lazy to catch a fish you can buy some pre dried
2. A little boy watching the fish
3. A happy crew with their catch.
4. Ruthies salmon getting ready to be pressed
5. Babi with the band

Lantau Island

One of the many places Greg and I went to Hong Kong was Lantau Island, a fairly large peice of land off of Kowloon. Truely great and a piece of Hong Kong that I did not know exist, a rural farm community.
When we were out on the island we had time to take the bus out to a little fishing village in the middle of nowhere.
After being on the bus for awhile, heading thourgh verdant mountains and meadows, with the sea almost always in site we came to the village of Won Tai, a very traditional village built on stilts over a tidal river.
The village was really cool with mixes of ancient chinese and colonial architecture. Unfourtantnly, soon after we got there darkness began to set in and the heavens opened so we did not get to rummage around the town to the extent that we wanted, but oh well, it was a good time and the ferry ride out and back was pretty cool even if they didnt serve us any beer.
1. The village of Won Tai built on stilts over the water
2. Dried shark anyone?
3. Another picutre of the houses on stilts. The tide here seems to come up pretty far.
4. Everywhere you go in Asia you can check out a little endangered species bbq. Here are some dried seahorses, no not the ones you get from the back of comic books, these are real.
5. The hand painted door at a very old temple that unfortuantly was closed by the time we got there.

Hong Kong One

I have wanted to go to Hong Kong for years. I don't know why, maybe the same idea that the British had to come to Asia flows in my veins. I do know now that Hong kong is an incredible place, full of not just shopping but incredible views, and if you are really lucky you can head out to the relatively unspoiled outlying islands and see a part of Hong Kong that you never knew existed, that of the rural Hong Kong.
While Greg and I were in the city we hit all of the tourist high points. The golden mile, filled with shops selling immensely expensive watches and clothes for the newly rich of China, the peak, with its stunning views of the city below and its equally stunning views of the homes of the old British elite that litter the peak, an oasis of cool in a place where the average humidity level while I was there was around ninety percent, the night market, filled with every bit of junk and suvioner that you could dream of buying, surrounded by the food of the bountiful sea that has feed Hong Kong for a thousand years, and the old quarter of Hong Kong island, distinctly different from the the hustle and bustle of Kowloon, with its old colonial buildings and the grim court of final appeal.
1. Pork, chickens, and ducks, the ubiquitous Hong Kong street food.
2. Old and new, a two hundred year old brick building huddled under an ultra modern sky scraper.
3. A view from the peak. Hong Kong island is just below and Kowloon is across the water.
4. Dragon fruit
5. Jade and amber scattered across the table.

Hong Kong Two

Some more, crappy pictures of Hong Kong, thanks to a camera that was on its last legs and was replaced a few days later.
1. Hong Kong Island from the Star Ferry
2. Hong Kong island at night
3. A sidewalk shrine
4. Kowloon at night
5. Piggy piggy piggy!