Boseong Green Tea Fields

Alright and on to the main event! Boseong Green Tea Fields!! We woke up early, left Yulpo, and made out way (via and amusing bus ride) back to Boseong. There is currently a festival going on at the fields. We have come to realize that most festivals include similar things: a cropping up of tents of various people telling things. Some things will be specific to the festival, for example many here were selling tea or tea holding pottery, but then also just stand festival tents like food, weird toys, carnival type games, etc, will always pop up. We enjoyed some free tea tastings, and admire the beautiful pottery before going up to the actual tea fields.

The fields were very interesting! I had always imagined tea to be a plant with huge, lush leaves, and not very woody. Actually, they were extremely woody and hard, with only little leaves. Surely the leaves will get bigger, but it was still a surprise! The air smelled unebelievably fresh, and there were huge pine trees all around us. Jeolla province was definitely a lush and beauiful area. The main city, Gwangju, was also incredibly beautiful and had Western type luxuries.. like trees and benches and sidewalks in the city!  But I digress, the tea! It was very cool. We also got to eat a lot of green tea products, my favourite being the green tea frozen yogurt. Yummy.We also got lucky with a day that wasn't too hot, since a lot of the day was spent hiking up the fields. It kind of blows my mind that so many tourists are allowed into the actual green tea fields. I was amused that the bush I had accidentally fallen into may be the same bush that flavoured my frozen yogurt!

Standard festival tent: big ol pot of something

Weird horse toys

Terrifying baby mannequins

This was cool! You could
buy lotus plant leaves
and grow them in a big
bowl of water!

Green tea selling booth. The picture of the woman farming
really makes me sad. It must be so awful manually
harvesting leaves!!! 

Traditional Korean paper, or fabirc?
I think it might be Hanji.

Pretty pottery

It is common practice in Korea for fast food places to have
plastic imitations of their dishes. I don't know if this is
supposed to whet the appetite of patrons, but it has
been extremely useful for us. Anyways here is a plastic
representation of a tasty plate-o-whale.

Cute little gazebo.

We avoided the crowded festival food tents, and instead
ate at the little restaurant that served green tea noodles!

Ice cream!

|Funny tree

And finally, the actual green tea fields! So lush, so lovely.

As Adri took this photo, some Korean ladies behind her
kept saying how cute it was in Korean. Cute is one
of the few words I know, so I laughed and thanked them.
Gave them a shock I bet!

The majority of tourists were Korean. It's nice to see how
they love to visit their own country.