Korean Farm Visit

November 12 Friday
Waking up before 7am, I packed and dragged my suitcase down the 3 flights of stairs. It is considerably heavier now that it contains 7 packages of Korean herbal medicine, 7 of them liquid. Mostly through acting it out, I conveyed my request that the hotel keep my luggage and I would return at 19:00. Once the perplexed look on the face of the attendant disappeared and he took my suitcase to the nearby closet, I headed out for bus #814. Even though the bus was rush hour crowded, I felt good about knowing how to get where I wanted to go.
At DongDaegu train station, I bought my ticket for Ulsan for this evening, bought a pastry decorated with egg and hot dog slices, and went outside to find the city bus tour. The small office was staffed with a young woman who spoke almost as little English as I speak Korean, so we communicated via my very limited Japanese, my even translating for some Israelis who arrived to buy tickets.
When I asked her if I could sit and eat my breakfast pastry, she quickly offered me coffee which she made from hot water from the hot/cold dispenser and I had a relaxed wait for the 10am bus.
This bus headed north out of the city to the mountain Palgonsan which rises a jagged ridge above autumn hills and under azure sky. I got off at the Guam farm where I was greeted by three culture guides in dark uniforms. I returned their greeting but continued walking looking for the ticket booth. One followed me and told me his English name is Ken. He showed me the workshop for braiding hemp into rope and for making it into baskets, mats and all sorts of traditional items, including back packs used by farmers of old.
He showed me the room where fabric is dyed a pale orange earth color, and made into garments. Then the lunch room where classes of schoolchildren get to taste traditional foods like the freshly made rice patties turned out and dusted with a pale brown flour by women cooks. Ken and I each ate several pieces and, while not having a lot of flavor, they were soft and chewy, unlike the rice paste items from the “lunch” the Korean man had bought Mary and me in the Seoul subway (which we ate until the last pieces, several days later, were too hard to be food and we used them, on the train from Suwon to Daegu, as spoons to eat our yoghurt.
An elementary class had piled on a wagon and Ken had us join them for a trip around the small roads to see farm workers assembling a greenhouse from the metal hoops and the huge sheets of transparent plastic film. Excited boys jumped up and down testing their balance as the wagon turned around corners; girls in pairs obviously were best friends; all shouted enthusiastic greetings to the farm workers.
Returning to the workshop area, we found a class of kindergarten children being helped by their teachers to try on the traditional backpacks. The teachers would also lift each kid up to stand on one end of the rice pounder and experience how the other end pounds rice kernels into flour
On the way out, Ken showed me the small traditional wedding room. The bed was a futon on the floor, the walls were covered with inscriptions, and bright colored silk attire hung nearby.
I was amazed that there was no ticket to buy and Ken asked for no money. After warm thanks and goodbyes, I walked out to the highway. Some 6 city tour buses head out from 10am to 16:40 and stop at 7 different sites where you can get off and then get on a later bus. In the bus, a large screen tv shows the sites of “colorful Daegu.”

Taegu, South Korea