It's Winter at 'My Photos'

It is actually autumn now, so that means it is the perfect time to post my photos from last winter. OK, so yes, I am a bit behind in posting photos. But that just makes it all the more interesting here. You never know what to expect when you visit.

I have tweaked the settings to the blog page a bit so I could use the larger size photos on Flickr.com. I am just trying it to see how it works. I don't expect I get enough traffic to use up the bandwidth of a free Flickr account, so things should be OK. If there is a problem, though, please let me know. If you want to see the photos without my commentary, you can go straight to my Flickr account.

These will be some photos shot in and around Andong sometime between the last month of 2004 and the first two months of 2005.

If you have ever wondered how they make the puffed rice, corn, or other things for your favorite breakfast cereal, then these next few photos will show you how it is done here. On the small scale production level, at least.

Some of the finished product can be seen on the low table in front. The guy takes your grain (Yes, often you provide your own. He is mainly providing the service though he does sell finished product.) and puts it inside that thing that looks like the gear box to a car differential. There is one behind him you can see better in the next photos. This serves basically as a pressure chamber.

He closes up the non-wheel end and places a gas burner under the round part. Then he connects the wheel to a motor, via the pulley, to provide rotation. Then the whole thing sets there and cooks. The rotation is so the stuff inside doesn't burn from setting in one place. The heat raises the pressure in the round part, and he keeps track of it on a pressure gauge at the wheel end.


He keeps an eye on the pressure gauge as it goes round and round. When the pressure is high enough, he removes the pulley and the heat and connects that basket like thing to the front of the device.

Then he reaches in with a pry bar, gives a blow on the whistle around his neck, and pops the door open.


With a loud bang and a cloud of billowing steam, the pressure is released, and the rice is instantly puffed as it shoots out into the catch basket.


It is quite a show, actually. Sometimes the operator doesn't use a whistle and the loud pow can be quite startling. I saw one 'misfire' once. The catch bag wasn't connected quite right and the realease knocked the bag off. Most of the puffed rice went in the bag, but it also flew everywhere else. Think of it like a confetti cannon, but with a much lot louder pop, and big chunks of confetti flying out.


I saw this building while I was out riding the back roads.

It took me a moment to figure out what it is, but I am pretty sure it is(was) used for storage and/or drying of vegetables or grain and the like. I have seen a couple of them now on the older farms. You'll notice it is made out of mud bricks with mud mortar. This one is in pretty good shape considering all the rain this area gets.

On a different ride I revisited a place that has been shown in this blog before. You may recognize it.

In the summer I used to try and skip rocks all the way across the surface of the water so they would hit the far wall. I have only done it once or twice.

In winter it is pretty easy. The stones just bounce and slide across the ice and strike the wall with a satisfying crack.

After a while I got up the courage to go out and test the thickness of the ice.

Luckily it was strong enough to hold me.

Considering all the testing I did and how long it took me to actually go out and stand on the ice, I felt kind of silly when I continued along the river, came around a bend and saw this.

People out skating, sledding and having a good ole' time on the frozen over river. This portion of the river spends most of the day in the shade, so some enterprising individual decided to rope off an area, and rent skates and sleds. He even has a tractor, somewhat like a primitive Zamboni, to clean the surface.

It is amazing how a patch of ice can turn anyone into a kid again.

Even those with kids be come kids.


This picture and the next are kind of interesting because they show what a very traditional Korean children's ice sled would be like. I am sure that in the day they were built better than this, but it really was just a piece of wood with wooden runners and two sticks with spikes in them for propulsion. You reach forward with the sticks, plant them in the ice and pull/push off ...

... and away you go. Who knows, maybe in her younger days this woman actually had one of these. Perhaps she is reliving the joys of her youth. Let's just hope she won't have to relieve the pain of a broken hip from slipping on the ice later.

The wonders of a frozen river may best be enjoyed by the young, but the young at heart can get a bit of thrill again too.

Not far from the skating area someone had apparently been taking ice from the river. For some reason they just left it setting there. I had to go investigate.


< It is interesting how the light and ice change color depending on the angle of viewing.

Here I was trying to capture some of the blue in one particular piece of ice.

I don't know why someone would go to all the work of cutting the ice and lifting it out just to let it sit there. Perhaps they would come back.

Continuing the ride quite a bit further on, I came to a temple complex.
This is the front gate to the temple Goun-sa '고운사' (that is pronounced go-oon as in spoon). It is a pretty nice place as far as temple complexes go. I saw it in the starkness of winter, so the surroundings weren't that great. But I could see were it would be nice in spring.

A little further in at the second gate are the temple guardians. They protect the temple from demons or evil spirits. There are traditionally four guardians in the gate building, but I only have pictures of two of them. Sorry.

This guy is pretty scary. I am sure he could scare off most evil spirits by himself. But he does have companions.

I guess this guy will play some bad music to scare the spirits off, or something like that.

There is a very nice bell pavilion in this temple. The lighting was kind of harsh that day. The sun was low, but it hadn't changed colors yet. I didn't get many good pictures of the buildings there.

Here is the gate to a small temple building you can just see through the door.

Here is another small building probably housing some Buddha images for some specific reason or other.

Here you can see a 'stove' built into the side of the building. It serves two purposes. One of course is to cook food. There is a big pot there now, most likely for cooking rice. But the fire also serves to provide under-floor heating for the building.

A closer view of the pot and fire.

So how do you keep the fire going?
With the surrounding forest, of course. On the top left of the picture you can see some smoke. That is coming from the smoke stack for the cook fire. The cooking pot you saw earlier is directly opposite on the right.

This picture is a bit out of focus, but here is one of the murals on one of the temples.
It is a depiction of the Buddha.

One more shot of a pavilion that spans a small stream.

Switching gears a bit, we head back to Andong. There are a lot of holidays and special days in Korea that follow the lunar calendar. Around the beginning of February is one such day. It actually celebrates the the return of the moon itself and the end of the hard days of winter. On the first full moon of the lunar year people hold a fire celebration.

Traditionally, in Korea, as the sun starts to go down, folks gather by the riversides and light bonfires. They also put burning brands or embers into a can (these days) and swing the cans around creating a displays of light. Here are a few of my attempts to capture some of the moments from this year's celebration.

Please take into account that I didn't have a tripod to use for any of these shots. In some cases that makes the shot more interesting, in other cases less interesting. Here you see a boy swinging around his can. He was moving at the time.

Here a mom is showing her child how to do it. A slightly shorter exposure time, but a larger aperture and toward some light.

This is what things look like when you don't have a tripod. I must be getting old. This is really shaky.

This one is kind of shaky too. But I like the effect, especially with all the burning embers flying out of the can.

This is probably the steadiest of the bunch. Think about what these kids are doing, for a moment. In the U.S., spinning around a can filled with burning coals would more than likely get you called crazy or branded as a pyromaniac. But here in Korea it is encouraged. Parents even show you the right way to do it. Oh sure, in the U.S. there is the Burning Man festival in the desert west, but then most of those folks are kooks. (I have always wanted to go, though.)

As the night wears on, several speeches and a few prayers are given and then they light the bonfire. It is a big pile of bamboo and pine- most of it still green but some dried-out wood too. They splashed a large dose of some flammable liquid on the pile so as not disappoint the crowd. After everything is said a select group of people toss some torches on the pile. Then some other people have to pick the torches back up and actually light the pile on fire.

Here are some fire pictures.


Burning bamboo is actually pretty cool. All the individual chambers hiss, pop, and explode as the moisture and air inside heat up.

There were also people selling fireworks, roman candles.

As things burn down ...

And here is what brings on all the celebration- the first full moon of the lunar new year.

The flames glow blue in the dying embers and everyone decides it is time to go home.


This post was a bit long, but I wanted to get a bunch of pictures out. I am a bit backlogged. I hope you enjoyed them. Leave a comment if you wish. Thanks for having a look.