Fall, Harvest, and Thanksgiving in Korea

It has been a beautiful fall in South Korea.  Colorful fields, hills, and mountains.  

Here, we were visiting a national park about 1 1/2 hour from Iksan.  We went midweek and there were thousands of people there - hardly any place to walk or park. 

  We were with Brother and Sister Choe, Yang Hee, and Hannah.  Huw is due home from Oxford University in about 2 weeks.  We especially miss him on outings like this.  With the colors of these maples and the smiles of Hannah, who could ask for a better day!

Ten Million Chrysanthemums Festival

Annual festival in our town of Iksan

An artist lettering Korean paper for us.

Colorful traditional performances 

To our delight and to others amusement,
every few moments Hannah would stop to pose.  

This is one chrysanthemum plant. The 5 levels of blooms is a wire rack with every individual blossom held in place.

Here you can see the one stalk supporting all those blooms. 

Many bees and butterflies decided to visit the festival at the same time we did.

That was fall

H A R V E S T

 Persimmons

Mature heads of rice

Rice laid on the road to dry

Most of the rice is harvested by modern combines.  But some of it is hand dried as you see here - and of course it is more expensive.

Also, most of the rice straw is raked and made into huge round bales by large tractors, then wrapped in plastic to be use as feed for cattle.  But we were fortunate to see this scene of hand tied bundles of straw.

THANKSGIVING


AT THE MISSION CENTER

AT CHURCH                        

Persimmons the size of baseballs, 

Bottle of sesame seeds, 

Radishes the size of 2 liter bottles (green and white)

Carrots the size of 1 liter bottles

Pumpkins, 

Cabbage heads the size of basketballs

Chestnuts

And of course about a half bushel of pepper  

Rice and grain in the sacks on the floor

This scene of bounty on the pulpit was the perfect setting for "How Great Thou Art"

Hannah keeps us in line, making certain our hands are folded, our heads are bowed, and our eyes are closed at prayer time.  We did become concerned about her sincerity when Sheila peeked and she was sneaking out the end of the pew.  She quickly insisted Sheila close her eyes again, then she quietly resumed her escape.  

 Several of the ladies wore these beautiful traditional Korean dresses the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

KIMCHI MAKING
Sunday afternoon and Monday was Kimchi making day for the local church.  They make enough Kimchi for the Sunday lunches for the entire year.  They also make enough to share with those in need. We are glad we were able to observe this enjoyable tradition.

It is made from cabbage soaked in salt brine, then slathered with plenty of red pepper paste
 from that big tub.

What do you get when you put about 10 ladies together making Kimchi?

Here is the answer!

Among other things,  they were laughing at Gene's pronunciation of the town, BongDong, 

where our mission center is located.  

 Fall has always been our favorite time of the year, and we have been especially blessed this year.