Mr. Young, one of my coworkers at Bunam Middle School, picked Jess and I up at the Cheongsong bus terminal. His apartment is in Cheongsong, so when he heard that we were interested in visiting the town, he quickly offered to show us around.
He drove us through the city, and pulled into an absolutely beautiful restaurant, perched on a hilltop in the northern outskirts. The architecture was obviously designed to mimic a patch of giant mushrooms, with huge mushroom-cap rooftops and curved walls. The whole building was painted earth tone colours, and the dining area had huge windows overlooking the beautiful scenery of the region.
His wife and son greeted us at the front door, and we headed inside. A huge lunch, still steaming, had only moments before been served in anticipation of our arrival. We sat down and enjoyed a mouth-watering meal of steamed-chicken, rice porridge soup (made with mineral water from one of the natural springs in the area), Korean pancakes (an assortment of vegetables mixed in with a dough) dipped in soy sauce, and a wide variety of traditional side dishes.
After our meal, we drove out to a small traditional village (which at one time, housed the richest family in the area), and spent hours walking around and talking about Korean life then and now. We knew that it was going to be one of the last beautiful weekends, so we spent as much time as we could just walking around and enjoying the sites.
At the end of the day, he drove us back to the bus terminal, and we headed back home.
Our visit may have been short, but it was the perfect way to spend a nice quiet Saturday…
- Ken
What's the farthest that the teachers have to travel toget to school? Sounds like a great day!
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