Gwangju News

Travel

We pressed onwards, past the reservoir and into some more farmland. Candy-sweet grapes ripened in the sun as a flock of chickens and ducks pecked at the shade underneath

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For the past four months, my friend Prairie and I have woken up early, laced our shoes, and run through the streets of Gwangju. We’re training for the Seoul Marathon which takes place at the beginning of November. Some days we run on the bike path along the river downtown, some days we run around the World Cup Stadium.

On Saturdays though, we have to hit our long runs – 10 to 20 miles. Instead of running into town for two hours (the river can be beautiful, but after an hour or so it all starts to look the same), Prairie and I have to get creative with our routes. Often it involves using equal parts luck, a fuzzy understanding of geography, and a dimly recollected map of Gwangju, to decide which way to turn at an intersection.

This method often leads to some surprising destinations. One Saturday, Prairie and I decided to head away from the city, hoping for a change of scenery. We ran out over a hill and found ourselves not in the middle of a bustling modern city, but in the middle of a beautiful emerald-green rice field.

Not ten minutes earlier, we were running past towering apartment blocks, a university building that looked like an amusement park castle, and a senior center. Then, the city just ended, and gave way to an idyllic rural scene.

We ran along a concrete path that snaked its way through the rice fields past lettuce growing in a big plastic greenhouse. We ran underneath a clearing on a hill with granite dragons marking graves looking over a calm, still reservoir.

We passed a handful of old men who were lounging under umbrellas drinking, and fishing languidly in the reservoir. They didn’t look like they were catching much of anything, but catching fish didn’t look to be the point. The men eyed us suspiciously as we ran past them. We had intruded on a lazy Saturday morning ritual, and our eager-beaver marathon-training was ruining the carefully constructed sense of indolence. No matter, we still had another two hours of running ahead of us, no time for fishing.

We pressed onwards, past the reservoir and into some more farmland. Candy-sweet grapes ripened in the sun as a flock of chickens and ducks pecked at the shade underneath. A pair of dogs in a cage barked at us like over-excited teenagers as we passed. Running past a shed, a guard dog no bigger than a soccer ball barked at us, warning us not to stop, or else.

We crossed under a highway and continued on a concrete path through more rice fields in a small valley. To our right on the other side of the fields, we saw a cluster of a dozen or so houses, each with a huge solar panel on its roof. To our left stood a big warehouse. A sign told us it housed a film studio. Rice dried on a long black cloth in the quiet road in front.

We ran along the road for a bit, avoiding the rice drying until we rounded a bend and came to a shrine. Pochungsa was a bit of a strange site – plopped as it was on the side of a mountain in the middle of the rice fields. But the traditional Korean arches and roofs fit the country scene perfectly. Prairie and I stopped, ostensibly for a water break, but really to just take it all in.

“This reminds me of home,” Prairie said.

“It’s so quiet,” I replied. “Hard to believe that over that hill somewhere there’s a bustling city.”

When we returned one Sunday afternoon when the rice fields had changed from green to golden yellow, we found dozens of Korean families out enjoying the sun. Small children rode bikes or rollerblades on the paths through the yard, while fathers pitched tennis balls to their children. Boys ran from their brothers, hiding behind the shrine. On a small hill, a group of teenagers sat listening while someone played Radiohead on a guitar.

Prairie and I were surprised that so many families spent their Sunday afternoon at the temple. In our minds, temples and shrines were for quiet worship, not for baseball and sing-alongs. But the families were there just the same, enjoying the afternoon sun before it dipped below the horizon.

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