Summer is here! I'm heading into the start of my third full summer in this country and the passage of time does not make it any easier. The humidity gets into and ruins basically every aspect of my life. No window is strong enough to keep it out. My classroom is so muggy the pictures I put up on the wall are already starting to wrinkle in on themselves. My students are all miserable, but at least now it's only partially my fault. Of course, when I do switch the air conditioner on it's only about five minutes before one of them complains that now it's too cold, at which point I either throw them or myself out the window.
This is my first summer in Gwanggyo though, and this area does have its charms. I take a lot of walks along the river which leads to the lake near my apartment and it is very soothing. Cherry blossom season ended about a month ago (the most gorgeous and tragically short lived season in this country) and now the trees are full leafed and the flowers are in bloom. The lake itself is ringed by a series of walking and bicycle pathways which lead to a park just past the southern bank. The pathways lead over some gentle slopes and through some well-maintained and beautiful forested areas. So it's a good time to get out and explore the natural beauty of the country, but if you don't bring at least six liters of water you're basically just a corpse that hasn't stopped moving yet.
The other weekend I actually took a trip on my own out to Yeoju, which ended up being only partially a failure. My goal was to visit the tomb of King Sejong (inventor of the Korean alphabet which I talked about INSERT TEXT TO DISPLAY HERE). Of course, because I'm mostly an idiot, I didn't find out until after I spent an hour and a half on the subway travelling there that King Sejong's tomb was under renovation and closed to the public. Fortunately the park was mostly empty so no one heard my near constant swearing.
The rest of the park was very nice though; I enjoyed a pleasant hour walking around and seeing some of the other tombs housed in that area. I realized this is one of the only times I've been out in a public space in Korea and virtually no one else was around. I stopped near the summit of one particularly tall hill and spent a solid five minutes just looking around at how empty it was. Even when I'm out walking past midnight there are always a few people out on dates or, you know, just being drunk generally.
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| Just me and my stupid stupid thoughts |
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| Entrance to the burial area |
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| Tomb of King Hyojong. Not the one I wanted to see but interesting nonetheless |
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