New Farm in Gurye

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So now I am back on the mainland in Gurye, a small county in the heart of Jeollanamdo province (southwest corner of Korea). The province gets abundant rainfall and is also home to the warmest weather on the peninsula. This helps to produce large amounts of agricultural produce, mainly rice, wheat, barley, pulses and potatoes. Vegetables, cotton and fruits are also grown in the province. This, I have to admit, I copied striaght from Wikipedia but it's totally true, I am in the Korean heartland of farming.

I left Jeju on Thursday with the original intent of taking a ferry but I somehow managed to mix up departure time of the destination port with Jeju's. So I headed to the airport knowing that all flights that day were booked out but I was hoping my Start Alliance frequent traveller status would somehow get me out of Jeju. And indeed it did. Only one reservation got cancelled and since I was first on the standby list I got the slot. Never mind that I had to wait 4 hours for the flight to take off. I flew to Gwangju and took a bus to Gurye from there. After leaving Gwangju behind the landscape quickly changed to farmland with rice patties, wheat fields and a scenic mountain range.

After 1.5h I arrived at the Gurye bus terminal were I was picked up by Mr. Choi, the WWOOF host. At the farm I was greeted by two Japanese WWOOFers, Hashimoto san and Yumiko san. Friday was an off day so I headed of to nearby Oh San (Mount Oh), at 531m more a hill than a mountain. I am posting some pictures from that hike. You can see that Gurye is located in a mountain valley with Korea's second highest mountain Jiri San in close vicinity. This one I plan to climb up to on Tuesday. Due to its vast range this will take 2-3 days. I'm looking forward to it, although it will probably rain. Koreans commonly say that staying for a while on the slopes of this mountain will transform foolish people into wise ones. Let"s see if that works for me ;-)

Oh, I actually did some real farm work yesterday. The farm produces seedlings amongst other things so we packed and delivered trays of rice seedlings to rice paddies. It required to wade in knee deep rice fields. Yes, rice is being grown in water covered mud fields. You might have seen it in movies but I waded in some of them.

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Photos

Jeong Bok Jug
The green bowl is abalone rice porridge, a Jeju delicacy. For most it probably does not look very appetizing but it is actually quite good.

Aquarium
You can find such water tanks in front of a lot of restaurants which serve fresh fish and shell fish. The upper case is abalone while the lower is inhabited with sea water snails.

Greenhouse Gurye
This is the greenhouse on the farm I am staying at. They mainly grow seedlings of rice but also paprika and chilly.

Mount Oh
A small mountain in front of the house

Rice Patties
Rice fields everywhere.

Rice Seedlings
The seedlings are grown in trays and then planted in the patties.

Wheat on the Road
he road is nice and flat. So why not use it for drying wheat?

Grave on the mountain
You can find many such graves near mountains. German authorities would probably freak out if something like that would happen in Germany.

Buddhist Temple
Near the mountain top

Shingles
These shingles could be found everywhere on the temple property. It listed name, adress and wishes.

My Personal Shingle
So I created my own. Only found out later the it would cost me 10000 Won.

Buddhist Worship Room
You can see fruit and rice cakes for sacrifice ... and a bottle of Soju schnaps (that"s the green bottle in the left most corner)

The Farm
Do you see the greenhouse (blue and white building) near the middle of the picture. That's the farm I am staying at.

Paraglider
There is a take of platform at mount Oh

Summit
I am getting used to sitting on top of mountains

Chillys
Koreans just love chillys.

Farm Worker in Rice Patty
Imagine doing that all day...

Hairy Chest
Admittedly I don't have one :-)