This weekend I headed down to Choong-chu (충추) again for a weekend of work. On Saturday we headed to a mountain near the girly’s grandparent’s house. The mountain is covered in overgrowth, is incredibly steep but thriving with chestnut bearing trees. We spent the afternoon collecting as many as we could. Their spiky shells we tricky to open on such a steep incline, particularly with the ground sliding away beneath my feet. I soon got into a good flow and collected a hell of a lot of chestnuts much to everyone’s surprise. It was quite a challenge moving around the mountain face. I was tripping on vines, sliding on earth, swinging from trees - you name it, I was doing it. The biggest challenge was the decent down the mountain. Since the ground was prone to sliding, you sometimes had to ride the flow of the earth while keeping your balance. Quite a day.

On Sunday we did something a little less dangerous but just as laborious. The girly’s family run an apple farm near their house. We spent the morning picking apples from the trees. There is actually an art to doing so. Once we mastered the various techniques for a clean pick we were soon filling baskets at a good pace. After lunch we were amongst the trees again but instead of picking apples we were assigned the task of pruning the apples stems and preparing them for sale. We had to decide which apples were sellable and put aside the ones that were no good. Most of the sellable apples had to be pruned. Armed with mini shears we got to work and made the apples presentable before neatly stacking them into boxes. We worked until there wasn’t enough light to continue.

In the evening to relax after our efforts, the girly’s family and myself went to a natural hot spring and soaked our weary bodies in the hot water. As my skin turned pink the smell of the water was quite overwhelming. However, as fast as I accustomed to the hot water the smell didn’t bother me at all and I was soon drifting into a world of deep relaxation.

It was an interesting weekend. Working on a farm is as laborious as it sounds but oddly satisfying. There is something quite special about working on a farm surrounded with yellow rice-fields, a dark green mountainous backdrop and an intense autumn sun beating down on you.

Photos on flickr.

Sounds like a weekend I’m severely jealous of…