Kenneth E. Harker
2008 Korea - Gyeonggido

After five days in Seoul, we travelled south to the city of Hwaseong, where we attended the 2008 World Amateur Radio Direction Finding Championships. Hwaseong is located in Gyeonggido, a province that surrounds the city of Seoul on three sides: north, east, and south. Although I tended to think of them as suburbs of Seoul due to their proximity, the cities of Hwaseong and nearby Suwon were actually quite large in their own right. Suwon is a city of over one million people, and Hwaseong is a city of about 360,000 people, and both cities have well-developed city centers. As part of the championships, we did some travelling to the rural countryside around Hwaseong.

These photos are copyright © 2008 Kenneth E. Harker. All rights reserved.

	Driving through Hwaseong City. The buildings on both sides of the road are high rise apartment buildings. About 85% of the Korean population live in apartment buildings like these.
	A street scene in central Hwaseong. Most of these buildings are five or six stories high. Unlike Japan or parts of China, Korea is relatively safe from major earthquakes.
	The competition area for the champonships on Thursday included several small valleys with cultivated rice fields.
	The earthern berm separates two rice fields from one another and provides a means to cross the valley without having to walk through flooded fields.
	The farmer in the center of the field was using a power tool of some sort that sounded like a leaf blower.
	The same rice fields. You can see electric power poles crossing the fields. The black plastic in the distance is shading or separating some row crops. The wooded hillside beyond the rice field is typical of the terrain in which the competitors would search for the hidden radio transmitters.
	The Sexy Kiss Bar in Hwaseong was about the raciest establishment name we saw in Korea. The 4F indicates that the bar is located on the fourth floor.
	On Saturday, the championships competition area was in a different part of rural Hwaseong. There were fewer cultivated fields and more wooded hills. I had to wait near some rice fields to be picked up after the day in the woods was over. These rice fields are terraced as the valley floor rises in elevation.
	A hay field. One of the nearby farms might have had cows or horses.
	A tree beside the road.
	Rice, as seen from the side of the road. I don't know what the white flag indicates.
	A view of the rice fields from the road. I spent most of the day in the woods in a gully on the side of the hill in the distance.
	The rice field was full of water.
	A water pump at the corner of the rice field near the road.
	A farmhouse in the distance, across the hay field. They had a small fire going in a fireplace.