Leave a message at the: My River

Cheonan, South Korea.

On the way to My River.

There is a small river near my apartment that I've walked along several times in the past year. For the purposes of this blog post, I will lovingly refer to it as My River since I don't know the name for it. Korea really loves their rivers. From the Han River in Seoul to the cherry-blossomy banks of the itsy-bitsy river in itsy-bitsy Haemi, most cities have really nice paved walkways running along their rivers, and they are usually filled with runners, walkers, and bikers. My River is no exception.

Walking along it isn't a bad way to spend an evening. There are cosmos flowers which will be great once they actually bloom. I've had random run-ins with friends, students, and coteachers there. One time, my girlfriend and I stood and watched fish swim upstream for at least 20 minutes, jumping small concrete barriers and swimming their little hearts out. We're great cheerleaders.

The cheerleading grounds.

So My River is wonderful for health-nuts and fish-watchers. Photographers, on the other hand, or at least amateur ones like myself, won't find much excitement there. There was a sudden boom of yellow blossoms one time and that was wonderful, but it's usually just a fishy, sometimes garbagy river on one side of the path, with towering apartments on the other side. If you cross My River and climb the ten easy steps up the opposite bank, you're usually met with a vista of muddy, marshy farmland. In the background, more apartments.

There aso this small orchard, growing whatever those green things are. Thoughts?

And here you can kind of see some of the apartment buildings.

About a month ago, I visited yet again. Crossed My River and climbed up the bank...and there were these amazing rice fields! Spring has come, and the rice fields are here. Be still, my heart, and know that everything is now going to be okay!

I hadn't been in a while, so I was really excited when I saw this scene before me.

The muddy, marshy crap I expected had become filled with water and green, green, green rice was already shooting up. The background of apartments became beautiful reflections and the soft sunset light made everything glow.

One of the small canals branching off My River.

The grassy-looking patches are actually the rice starters.

Each section of rice paddy is split by these narrow earthen walkways.

Spotted this little guy on my way home.

Naturally, I have visited many more times now to watch the rice's progress. What looked like little patches of grass floating in the water on my first visit were split up and spread out in wobbly rows on the next, and a week later, those little tufts had grown quite a bit. I spend my time walking between the fields, looking at the little bugs and super scary creatures in the water, and watching the sunlight fade away.