Beautiful walk to the Jade Mine.

Big waves on the northern coast of Sokcho
Conor, Paul, and me
Whoa! Did you see that one?!
Rice fields on our hike up north
Jade mine - 200 km

To our great joy, Saturday turned out to be sunny and warm with a light cool breeze (after over a week of rain!). We met up at Ara's to take the bus to Bupyeong, a neighborhood at the northern end of Sokcho. From there we would hike around the rice fields in Ganseong and search for the elusive jade mine (which we found, but couldn't go into, because it was closed).
It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and we had Ara, our fearless guide, to take us around. Paul and I owe probably half of the beauty we've seen to Ara, who regularly explores the backroads of this area. He accidentally got us off the bus too early, and we ended up doing a little bushwhacking. (It's no walk with Ara unless we get off track momentarily! That's okay, it keeps things adventurous...) We jumped a creek, blazed through a cornfield, found a random driving range, and then Ara saw...a SNAKE! And he freaked out so bad that Conor, Paul, and I all thought he was playing around. He was breathing really fast and hard and shaking. Conor was in front of him and Ara goes "Go quickly, because when it's my turn, I'm running for it!" We never saw the alleged reptile, but it was pretty hilarious watching Ara go bullistic over it.
The rest of the walk was just lovely. As I've mentioned before, walking through rice fields lined by mountains is just relaxing. It's like being in old world Korea. Only a few weeks remain until harvest time, so the rice is almost ready. You can actually see the rice pods on the plant now. Farmers were out watering and tending their fields. We saw several white cranes fly in and out (they love to hang out in rice fields). Men on tractors with tall rubber boots and straw hats. Women picking and drying red chili peppers (it's kimchi season, folks!). Curious smiling children watching us. Old people who were very friendly and smiled at us when we walked through their village.

We've hit true fall weather in Korea, which is blissfully sunny with cloudless skies, but slightly cooler. Pretty soon, the second tourist season will hit Sokcho as the wave of travelers flock to Seoraksan to see the beautiful fall foliage.
We ended the day with a visit to a hanshi restaurant (traditional Korean food--bulgogi, flounder, hotpot rice, kimchi, squid and jellyfish, mushrooms, etc.--very tasty!). This was Conor's first visit to this place, and I think he enjoyed it! The staff even brought out a second buttery crispy flounder after we literally devoured the first one. Since Conor is leaving in just a few days (aw man! Not again!!), it was a great day to be together.