Yesterday, the weather was bright and sunny, if somewhat cold. After a vigorous bike ride to get the blood flowing, MyeongHee and I decided to take a short drive and enjoy whatever we could find. It was long before we found something worth getting out of the car for.  GyeongJu is probably one of the highest-travelled tourist spots in Korea and its just a short 30km from our place. We didn’t intend to drive that way, but the roads just kind of took us that way.

We stopped at a man-made waterfall just inside the main tourist loop and took a few pictures.Perhaps a little tough to see, but there’s ice on some of the rocks.

What’s not tough to see is MyeongHee’s shoes. High heels, no socks or stockings and jeans. That’s a fairly common style among the women here. No matter the temperature. Maybe not apparent also is that my hair has relaxed somewhat from the perm last weekend. It’s not quite so “poodly” and is looking a little more like the rock-star look I wanted.

Adjacent to the waterfall is an enormous water wheel. Never really in use, the wheel is a mock-up of how Koreans used to pound rice grains to separate the grain from the husk.

She’s so photogenic. She loves to smile for me.

Next to the waterwheel is the grind house, where the gears cause a huge log to pound up and down on a conical stone filled with rice. The later afternoon sun prevented a clean shot of the whole place, particularly the pounding stone. But it was cute and rustic.