Sunday, 06 January 2008

Almost Empty New Year

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I might be heading to Seolbong to see what’s happening there. I'm sad to report that I didn't see anything in terms of festivities. I tried to find information about any programs on the internet, but found nothing there either.

The day wasn’t a complete waste, though. I decided to walk a different route to Seolbong Park and stumbled upon a Confucian School that was supposedly opened in the fourteen hundreds. There had been some restoration work, but most of it is still original. It is one of Icheon’s historical landmarks. It’s amazing to think there are countries that had schools and universities before South African was even a country on the world map. We had people, but they were in no way concerned with much outside their tribal area.

After scouting for a few photographs, which there wasn't, I moved onwards to my original destination. The park, being mostly deserted, had the benefit of allowing photographs without people cluttering up the frame. You know by now that I don't like people in my photographs all that much.

The only active part of the park was a small square that was lined with plastic and filled with water. The water, frozen by the cold weather, make an excellent play area for the children. The people who set it all up were renting out small ice sleds/luges for the children. The children were then either pulled by someone else or were dragging-pushing themselves along using two spiked poles. Don’t you just love watching children play with spiked poles? LOL

After getting a few interesting photographs there and around the park, I headed in to town to get something to eat, but not before staring at the frozen lake.

In front of the park is a small man-made lake. Because the water flows slowly, the water surface was frozen, not just the edges, but right across the lake. It’s strange to see rocks floating on water. I was very tempted to see how thick the ice at the edges really was. Because there was no snow and the ice was clear, it looked almost like normal water and I would have been able to imagine myself walking on water. I could have been great. (That was for you, June)

I include only three photos here to illustrate the post. They have minimal editing, but I'll edit some more photos later to put on Facebook.

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