I've had two days of sneezing and blowing my nose through the little farming town of SunSan. I did not expect to be the sickly one on this trip. I'm feeling like I am on the other side of it now and other than a raw nose, I am no worse for wear.
I really like the small towns. Our new hosts actually picked us up wearing blue jeans! The pace is much slower here and we spend lots of time visiting after meals instead of rushing off to the next event. Foreigners are not common here, so rather than tourist stops, we have visited businesses of the local Rotarians.
Our first stop was to the butcher shop. Oh dear. The butcher had a blow torch and was firing... pigs ears the size of my feet. Yuck. We walked quickly past so we wouldn't have to see much and it got worse. Outside it was a pig's head that was being torched. Janis was in there with her note pad and questions and Mina and I held hands like little girls and walked away trying to erase the memory.
We visited a textile factory where they make nylon thread, a bank, a beautiful little kindergarten and the water resource company.
The highlight for me was a visit to a tomato farm where we loaded up on organic cherry tomatoes. Rows and rows of delicious, red tomatoes. He also grows a small round variety of watermelon and another type of gourd (Sun, our translator, called it a pumpkin, but it was very small, green and hanging from the ceiling. It didn't seem like a pumpkin). The biggest problem our farmer has is finding labour, even though he offers higher wages. Same old problem of the younger generation moving to the big cities. He is worried about the FTA. Currently he ships his wares to Japan and is worried about the USA taking over his market. He will just do what he does and hope for the best. From what I can gather about the FTA, it means cheap Hyundai's and flat screen tv's for the americans and american cars (they are doing just fine with Hyundai and Kia) and hardship for farmers for the Koreans. I'm definitely down on the FTA.
We enjoyed a leisurely picnic of strawberries, tomatoes, melon and beer on the farm with our new friends.
They had asked us if there was anything that we wanted to see while we were in Korea. We told them that we had hoped we would be able to see some traditional dance... In generous Rotarian style, they made a few phone calls and put together a drumming troupe to perform for us on Tuesday night. The performers wore colourful costumes with big puffy hats like pompoms. They strapped a big hourglass drum on me and put two drum sticks in my hand and I was part of the performance. We all had different instruments and marched around the parking lot in the drumming circle. I felt so alive. I have discovered a new love for music here.
Today we have the morning off and will travel back to Pohang for the district conference being held this weekend.
I really like the small towns. Our new hosts actually picked us up wearing blue jeans! The pace is much slower here and we spend lots of time visiting after meals instead of rushing off to the next event. Foreigners are not common here, so rather than tourist stops, we have visited businesses of the local Rotarians.
Our first stop was to the butcher shop. Oh dear. The butcher had a blow torch and was firing... pigs ears the size of my feet. Yuck. We walked quickly past so we wouldn't have to see much and it got worse. Outside it was a pig's head that was being torched. Janis was in there with her note pad and questions and Mina and I held hands like little girls and walked away trying to erase the memory.
We visited a textile factory where they make nylon thread, a bank, a beautiful little kindergarten and the water resource company.
The highlight for me was a visit to a tomato farm where we loaded up on organic cherry tomatoes. Rows and rows of delicious, red tomatoes. He also grows a small round variety of watermelon and another type of gourd (Sun, our translator, called it a pumpkin, but it was very small, green and hanging from the ceiling. It didn't seem like a pumpkin). The biggest problem our farmer has is finding labour, even though he offers higher wages. Same old problem of the younger generation moving to the big cities. He is worried about the FTA. Currently he ships his wares to Japan and is worried about the USA taking over his market. He will just do what he does and hope for the best. From what I can gather about the FTA, it means cheap Hyundai's and flat screen tv's for the americans and american cars (they are doing just fine with Hyundai and Kia) and hardship for farmers for the Koreans. I'm definitely down on the FTA.
We enjoyed a leisurely picnic of strawberries, tomatoes, melon and beer on the farm with our new friends.
They had asked us if there was anything that we wanted to see while we were in Korea. We told them that we had hoped we would be able to see some traditional dance... In generous Rotarian style, they made a few phone calls and put together a drumming troupe to perform for us on Tuesday night. The performers wore colourful costumes with big puffy hats like pompoms. They strapped a big hourglass drum on me and put two drum sticks in my hand and I was part of the performance. We all had different instruments and marched around the parking lot in the drumming circle. I felt so alive. I have discovered a new love for music here.
Today we have the morning off and will travel back to Pohang for the district conference being held this weekend.
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