Monday, March 05, 2007

Paju

Stephanie and I decided, since the weather has been a little warmer, that we would go over to Yeouido island and just see what was there. We had decided to go on Saturday, but had a phone call from a friend that changed our plans. He had a rental car leftover from a business trip he went on, and invited us and another of our friends along for a ride out to a town called Paju.

It was incredibly nice to get away from the city. In fact, we've only been able to do that a few times since we've been here. It's just refreshing to get away from tons of people and actually see more hillsides and open areas.


Driving out on the freeway toward Paju (which is, I believe, North of Seoul), we saw barbed wire on the left side of the freeway for quite a while. We didn't know what it was.
YongHyun missed an exit, got off at a tiny farm exit, and tried to go under the freeway, through a small tunnel, to find an on-ramp. However, the tunnel ended in a military barricade, and a soldier who told us we could not enter.
We couldn't quite figure it out, but YongHyun explained something about a bird sanctuary. We were a little confused about the barbed wire and the military protecting a BIRD SANCTUARY, so we just made jokes about them containing the bird flu. In all seriousness, I think it does, in some way, have to do with guarding borders to protect against bird flu or something. Okay, but honestly, I'm not quite sure.

We made it to Paju and went to a small development, but I'm not sure of the name. It, apparently, is a place for many artists who live in modern housing. There are some cafes, galleries, etc, and seems to be a place to drive around and look at. The buildings are still being built. Here's an example of some buildings/houses we saw:


We goofed around:


The funny thing is that this "artist village" is RIGHT next to the famous English village where parents take children and schools take students to be immersed in an English environment for an afternoon or a day. They try to recreate it all for the kids, most of whom are all learning English either at a public school or an after school academy.

So, quite mind jarring is the new modernist buildings, and in the background having very European style townhouses:
Also, this majestic building was right across the street as well:

We rode home in the late afternoon. It was really an odd day... really cloudy and overcast, yet not raining and not so cold. See the look of the countryside in the pictures above? This is a picture of Seoul back in town:

It had warmed up over the last week or two and we were happy just to be wearing coats outside and not having scarves and hats and gloves. My director said, though, that there is a saying in Korean for when the Spring comes, and the Winter feels jealous for all of the joy that Spring brings the people. It is jealous of all the attention and love that Spring gets, so Winter comes back for an encore because of its jealousy. When we woke up this morning there were tiny little snowflakes and the freezing wind was gusting. I told my director tonight "you were right!"

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