2008 Sept 20 Soyang Dam and Cheongpyeong temple Part 1

Julianne and I debated between going to Seoul and doing something in Chuncheon today . . . we decided to visit Soyang Dam and temple.

***NOTE: Move the mouse over a picture and CLICK ON IT to ENLARGE.***

We took a 15 minute taxi (W16 000) and arrived pretty quickly at the top of the dam. A lot of people were taking pics in front of an artificial waterfall that sits next to the dam.

Not sure what these guys were celebrating, but it made for an interesting pic.

While I was puttering around taking pics a group of university-age Koreans wandered over to where I was and asked me to take a pic with their camera. It was fun to do because after two pics of the standard "Peace Sign" pose I encouraged them to do a "crazy pic" and they went nuts climbing on top of the railing and doing all sorts of 'real life' stuff . . . I seriously hate the peace sign posing culture here and always encourage Koreans to try and find alternatives to it.

After I took their picture the camera owner asked me if I wanted him to take a pic of Julianne and I--sure, why not.

Julianne and I then walked around on top of Soyang Dam taking pics . . .

I feel like I've improved a lot in terms of learning how to use my Canon SLR Digital Kiss since I bought it. It's nice to be able to navigate a lot of (no, not all, lol) the settings on it and play with it trying to get really nice pics . . .

Shane, a co-worker and friend, gave me some deserved sh*t about not being able to delete and/or edit pics after a major picture taking event/trip. I've been working on lowering the pics I post to the 'best ones' . . . but it's been a major challenge. I also don't really have any proficiency, experience, or expertise in using the photo editing programs that are out there. So, that's something I'm going to try and improve this year.

I chose to use the 'monochrome' setting as it was overcast. I find that using black and white when a blue sky is totally absent seems to help with contrasting lighting and producing some kind of picture that is worth looking at regardless of whether or not there is sunlight and a blue sky.

More pics to come . . . I uploaded 520 pics onto my laptop. After editing and deleting for almost 2 hours I erased 150 pics. I am still trying to reduce the number, but am finding it a rather difficult task . . .

To see Julianne's blog, http://snuggle-bunny-in-korea.blogspot.com/

J