Scootering, Orphans and Monkey Attacks

Today, I picked up my scooter from the shop (it now purrs like a kitten, while my kitten purrs like a scooter) then Nina and I headed out to points unknown around Suncheon. We motored out of the city, and into some of the most scenic countryside I've ever seen here. Half the time, I had to keep from driving off the road as I gazed around at mountain vistas and farmers working in their fields, harvesting rice.

We stopped at a place called "SOS Children" (we assume that it's an orphanage of some sort), where we were swarmed by a herd (flock? gaggle?) of young kids. They were more interested in the scooters than in Nina or I, and took turns honking the horns, stealing our keys and hopping on and off our bikes. Nina took the boy in the white shirt for a little ride before a man waved at us, telling us to go away.

We continued on, while the road dwindled from blacktop to concrete, winding up and up a mountain. Not really knowing where we were, we just kept on going, asking for directions from time to time. At one point, we found an abandoned school. It was small, with only three classrooms, and what seemed to be living quarters off to one side. The yard was overgrown with weeds and the building was absolutely crumbling. In Canada, it's sure that this place would have been vandalized, graffitied and full of garbage. Here, however, it was just naturally falling down.

We continued on, still "lost" but having a real hoot. Our next stop was what seemed to be a restaurant with a "mini-zoo" behind it. The zoo consisted of 2 macaques in a cage (not the ones in the picture, but you get the idea), with no food or water. I took my water bottle and passed it through the cage bars to one of them, who guzzled it, then began shrieking. Suddenly, there was a rustling in the bamboo thicket behind us. As Nina yelled at me to get back on my scooter, a larger version of the guys in the cage arrived. He studied us for a moment then, as we sped away, actually gave chase!

The rest of our trip was, thankfully, less eventful. I'm probably going to head out there again tomorrow, and take pictures all the way through. It's just amazingly gorgeous, and a great (cheap - about 2 bucks in gas) way to spend the afternoon.