광주

So I had a fun, double Gwangju weekend. I went on my own on Saturday, and met up with some friends later that day. Then I ended up in Gwangju again on Sunday when I went persimmon (감) picking with my boss and her family.

Gwangju is a bigger city about 80 kilometers east of Suncheon. It's an easy, and cheap, 6 dollar trip over there... and tons of shopping. A great get-a-way. I wanted to go over and check out an electronic store they have there. It's 7 or 8 floors of just electronics. I had some fun there looking at new camera gear and dreaming about what I wanted. I also found the Nikon shop, where they clean the cameras. When I finally figured out that they did clean camera, I decided to get mine cleaned. So I handed my baby over to the lady, gave her 10 bucks, and was told to come back in 20 mins. A little nerve racking. But it's clean... and it's a fraction of the cost in the states.

The second half of the weekend was spent picking persimmons. Very interesting. We used a few methods to get the persimmons:

1- A bamboo stick that was cut at the end. You stick it on the branch and twist. Persimmon picked.

2- A metal rod with branch cutters and a net on the end. You snip the branch, persimmon falls into the net. Persimmon picked.

3- Cut the branch off the tree. Persimmon picked.

It was a ton of fun. I got to hang out with my boss and her family. It was also the hardest day of work I've had since coming to Korea.