SaraDevil: The Interests of Sara Davila online Artist

I went to see Sam this weekend in Waygone. Now I would not say that Waygone is
in the country. It is in fact in Daegu, just on the far, far outskirts of it,
as Mr. Kim informed me when I told him I was not in Daegu. "No, Sara, Waygone
is in Daegu" he said to me, so I suppose it must be true.
Waygone is a twenty-five minute or so train trip from the station, which is a
15 to twenty minute cab ride from where I live. So in all, I can easily leave
here at around 10:00 and expect to be in Wagone around 10:45 if I manage to
catch the train. Sam's apartment is a very short walk, through a somewhat
shoppy district, but nonetheless, it seems to be in a nice area.

It is very unlike where I live in that it seems to be much less a teaming
metropolis. There is a very prominent military base in town. So much so that
when you go to catch the train you can look into the base to see the rows and
rows and rows of armored and camouflaged trucks and hummers, and jeeps stacked
about. The base is on the other side of the tracks, though, so we tend to avoid
it, and for the most part I didn't run into to many military type people while
hanging out.

On Saturday we started by having a nice chegay breakfast at a local place, and
then wondered and pondered our afternoon plans, until finally deciding to go to
Sam school where I would be able to play the piano for a bit. After that we
decided to take a walk down to the river so I could at least see hill 303 which
has no name.

Waygone was part of Korea that, during the war, was captured and held by North
Koreans for a few weeks before being pressed back. There are three bridges in
Waygone now, but at the time the two standing bridges had been destroyed by US
military forces to prevent further intrusion, and were eventually restored.
Hill 303, one of the areas held, looks like a tiny little mountains, as many of
the mountains sometimes do, and sticks up on the horizon so that you would not
notice it if it were not being pointed out.

We climbed up some stares to the river embankment and there were able to look
at the river about 30 feet below us on the other side of the embankment, not to
far, really, but a good walk down and up. As we neared the top we examined the
river, and Sam pointed out the hill, and I turned looking up and down the
embankment, and noticed, out of the corner of my eye what looked to be a cow.

A cow is not something you can mistake easily. It's big. You know, big, like a
cow. And there did in fact seem to be a cow that was heading straight for me.
Now, being the person I am, rather than decide this cow was a figment of my
imagination, or someone else? problem, I pointed the cow out to Sam and said
"Look, it's a cow!"

Now this cow was head towards us fairly quickly, and being a cow it was big,
and I was a bit worried about it crossing our path on the embankment, which,
though fairly wide, I was not sure would support the cow and us and the benches
on the other side of us without someone going over an edge.

As it was, the cow, the benches, and the very amused waygooks all fit very
well on the path. As did the elderly Korean man who had tied a rope around the
cows neck. The rope was tied to his bicycle, and the man (with a surgical mask,
as is the style among many elderly Koreans) was holding a large handful of
branches for encouraging Daisy to move along.

Oddly enough as he passed, he stared at us, probably more surprised to see a
couple of non-Koreans on the path then we were to see the cow, but I would
guess it was a toss up.

The cow moved on down the path and for the rest of the afternoon we would
occasionally see the cow being run up and down the river embankment. We
speculated at the many reasons one would have for taking ones cow out, other
than, of course, as a source of power for ones bicycle. Perhaps it was a racing
cow? He might be bringing it to market (a theory we tossed out after watching
the cow race up and down along the river). Maybe it was a pet cow, a cherished
family animal that just needed a good walk? I'm not sure, I will probably never
know, but it was really just damned odd to watch that cow run by with a bicycle
rolling on behind it.

After that we walked down to the bridge and on the way back ran into a very
frisky and friendly Jin-dog-ay puppy who was quite happy to sit on our laps for
a bit, and generally play with us.

We went home and made pancakes for dinner with strawberries and pears from the
local market. We also watched the most fantastic Korean movie I've ever seen,
and possible one of the best movies I've ever seen call Chin-wa-son (I think I
spelled it close to correct) about a Korean artist who lived in the late 1850's
before the Japanese colonized Korea for the last time. It was brilliant.

That's about it. Not to much excitement that has been out of the usual anyway.

Hope everything is all right elsewhere,

Sara