Buan, South Korea. A glimpse into our small town.
/ Roxy HuttonFarmboy & I have been living in Buan, South Korea for the past 2 & a half years and have really enjoyed the change in lifestyle from our first year in Korea where we lived in a huge city (Daejeon). This time around we are in 'rural' or 'countryside' Korea, but if you were to walk the streets of our town you would find it hard to declare rural. It looks like almost ever other city/town in Korea apart from the fact that we only have 1 main street lined with stores.
However a 2 minute drive out of town and you'll find wide open spaces, tractors & four wheelers driven by old men with their old lady(ies) riding shotgun. Every street corner and square inch of open space is cultivated and tended to with loving care.
Here are some photographs from an early evening drive around my town. The nights are getting cooler and the leaves are falling from the trees. I can't wait to photograph the red and yellow colours of Autumn, and of course the crisp, white snow of Winter still to come.
I was even able to get my pup #ShadowTheJindo to pose for a few shots too. Click here to read more about is story and how we found him on the side of the road last year September.
Photographs taken with my Nikon D700 and 50mm 1.4 & 24 - 70mm lens.
After a second visit to this delightful burger place in Gwangju, I am 100% convinced that this will be one of the best you'll eat while in Korea. I'm talking real, homemade, grilled patties with plenty of extra toppings that will leave you with a very full stomach and a happy heart.
Burger Bridge is a small restaurant located on the other end of downtown Gwangju, near Mudeung Mountain 무등산. It's in the Chosun University area, a place filed with the trendiest cafes, bars and restaurants. It's quite nearby to Florida Cafe and Hertz Guesthouse (one of our favorite dog-friendly places to stay).
The best part about this place (apart from how good their burgers are and what good value for money they are) is their opening times! Most restaurants open closer to midday in Gwangju, which is a real pain if you wake up early like us. Burger Bridge is open from 10 am! The restaurant itself is small, but oh-so-charming, and the guys who run it are super friendly. You can tell they are proud of their burger joint!
I have been wanting to visit the Enrogel Teapot Cafe ever since reading about it on Seoul State of Mind. When my friend Sam from There She Goes Again (you might recognise Sam as the stylist behind a lot of my styled photo shoots) recently took a trip there and I saw her photographs, I knew I had to make a plan to get there. Most of the weird and wonderful places to see in Korea are in Seoul. As I live way down south in a tiny little town called Buan, getting to Seoul is only really possible on the weekends.
I was delighted to find out that the teapot cafe is a mere 40 minute drive from Buan, and so I was able to go visit it one afternoon afternoon after school.
The cafe itself is actually just outside Jeongeup, which makes getting there quite easy as you can catch a train to Jeongeup and then from there a local bus. I am not sure of the exact route to take via public transport as I have a car (having a car in Korea is a real game changer especially if you have a dog here like we do).
The cafe is located in just outside Jangseon village , which is between Jeongeup & Gwangju and is actually quite near the famous Baekyangsa Temple in Naejangsan National Park. Naejangsan is particularly famous for its display of Autumn leaves, and Baekyangsa temple is a very special place to visit during Autumn.
We visited the teapot cafe at the end of Spring, and must have just missed the cherry blossoms. We were able to catch a glimpse of the end of the blossoms, but from the little we could still see of the blossoms, it must have been magnificent during full bloom. The drive itself from Buan to Jangseon is beautiful, and well worth an afternoon drive if you have a car.
It's the start of the cooler weather here in South Korea and I have been wanting to cut a fringe for the past few weeks. Cooler weather means much less maintenance when it comes to a fringe, or bangs as my American friends say. All girls with a fringe will sympathise with me when I say that that part of your hair does not tame easily, especially if you exercise a lot.
A few weeks ago I noticed a number of my students had cut their gorgeous, long hair in favor of a bob, and when I asked them why they had cut their hair, I was quite surprised at their answer. They had donated their hair to cancer charities. After asking a few more questions about it, I decided I wanted to do the same with my hair. In the past 20 years I have only had one 'short' hair cut and that was to below my shoulder, hardly short I would say, and so this was quite a big deal for me. Instead of thinking about it too much, I decided to make the change last week Tuesday and then walked into a salon here in my small town and had it all chopped off. Over 30 cm's of hair!
Here are a few snaps of my hair pre-cut (as in, the morning of the day I cut my hair). It was long, wavy and looked a bit endy. I was never the type of girl to spend hours curling or straightening my hair, and this is how it looked naturally after a quick once over with the hairdryer after a shower.
If you have a car here in Korea then camping is super easy and a wonderful way to spend the weekend. Even if you don't have a car, you can easily get to most camping spots by bus or train and if you have an International Drivers license you can easily and rather cheaply hire a car too!
Camping is a very affordable way to spend the weekend, and the cost of your camping gear is easily covered by your first or second trip when you compare it to the cost of staying in a motel. Also, as we have a large dog, and so camping means we don't have to worry about him when it comes to finding places to stay here. Korea is not very dog friendly, and it is near impossible to find places to stay that allow dogs (especially bigger ones) and so camping makes life easier. And it's far more fun!
