How fast was that going? Date Friday, April 19, 2024 - 09:19 AM PST Topic Experiences Note: This article contains graphic imagary of cows. Those who are afriad of anything bovine are forwarned. Please check with the laws of your state before reading. I went to see my friend 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 stairs to the river embankment and there we 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’s problem, I pointed the cow out to Sam and said "Look, it's a cow!" Now this cow was heading 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. I vote this to be strangest thing I’ve seen yet (well there was that night I was driving home from work and was passed by twenty topless women on bikes on a hot summer night, but that is another story). I thought I would share. Although I'm sure this would be just mere brush with unreality compared to some of the strangest things others have seen. This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=512