~BACKLOGGED RECAP #7: Doing things in Jeolla!

After traveling a bunch (Fall conference, Busan for my birthday, Seoul/Halloween), I decided to do a few weekend low-key and stay in Gwangju/Jeolla-do.

I went to the Gwangju Biennale with my host brother. And we were really disappointed. The art was really…. Futuristic? There was a lot of art where I looked at it and thought “I don’t understand art.”

I really enjoyed this piece:

IDK man. The colors are nice. It was just really pleasing to look at.

And I liked this piece:

It was a bit of performance? The artist photographed people holding the light green sign in different places where the 1980 Protests and Democratization of Gwangju happened.

Then one week day Taejun and I went to this concert. It was classical music and I was not really into it, but he loved it! And apparently the conductor, (IDK HIS NAME), is really famous?

If you really know me, you know I’m not a huge outdoorsy person…. But Korea has a ton of mountains and Koreans LOVE hiking. So I’m finally trying to make more of an effort to hike.

In mid-November I went to hike Naejangsan with Bryan and Anna. Naejangsan is famous for the maple trees and for two weeks in late October/early November all of Korea flocks to Naejangsan, which is in a tiny tiny town, to see the leaves change. We’d hoped that we’d miss the crowd by going in mid-November because it was after peak. There were still a lot of people so I can’t imagine what peak season is like.

Anna and I are obviously less fit than Bryan, but he hiked slowly for us.

It was a good hike, minus the Korean woman yelling into her phone “where? I’m here. Well, come here. Quick!”

UP NEXT: ~BACKLOGGED RECAP#8 November things