Out and About: April 30

I had half-planned to go out making photos somewhere this morning, but by the time I got up the light was too harsh and the wind was starting to blow hard. So I was reduced to making photos of things around the house. That is, my wife’s vest:

Around 3:30 the wind died down and some clouds formed. I decided to jump on a bike and go for a ride to get some fresh air. But Amice decided that he wanted to take his constitutional before I did.

Roads meant for farmers are usually made of concrete and just one lane wide.The fields in this photo will soon be flooded and planted with rice seedlings. Maybe the rice from this field will feed some of the people living in those flats in the background.

I came across my favourite Korean truck, the Kia Ceres. It’s been long out of production, but there are still quite a few being used by farmers around the country. They are four wheel drive and many of them are equipped with small tractor motors under the body that can be used for lots of things including pumping water and pesticides.

This space is usually has a tractor parked in it. I saw quite a few tractors in fields today and probably the owner of the tractor was one of them.

On a back road I found someone had dumped two or three sackfuls of rice here and there was another large pile off to the side. It was obviously from last year, but hadn’t been hulled or polished. In the background of this photo is an unfinished construction production covered in vines.

Nearby was the entrance to hell. Or a shed made from a hothouse and scraps . . . .

I took the electric bicycle today and made a snapshot of it after photographing the rice and shed.

I crossed the Namdae River to have a look at a shrine in a nice grassy area.

An explanation of the shrine is on a sign nearby.

The Daegwallyeong mentioned in the explanation is a mountain pass between the east coast and the rest of Korea. There are protective spirits living up there and you have to wait in line to have a shaman perform rites for you at a shrine up there. Every year before the Dano Festival, a spirit enters a quivering tree and the tree is carried down to Gangneung. The spirit is then housed here until May 3rd on the lunar calendar. The Dano Festival goes back a thousand years or more.
I made a few photos of the shrine before the wind picked up again and I decided to go home.

I’m guessing that equipment for the Dano Festivalis stored in these containers. ‘Je’ means ‘festival’ in the word ‘Danoje’ on the right of the photo.

Well, that was my bicycle ride around the neighbourhood. I hope you enjoyed the views, if not the photos.