This is my first contact with a horse since coming to Korea. I am ashamed to have indulged in the excitement around the poor animal, seeing as this picture is taken outside the main door of a department store on a footpath in the middle of a city. Friday was "Children's Day", and so horses were brought to my part of town with little kids placed atop them and paraded up and down the footpath. How cruel. How entertaining for children who have never seen, let alone touched a horse. Koreans are unaware of how to act around horses as their contact with them is minimal so it was understandable that they were unaware of the correct way to approach the animals. People were shocked to see me amble up to this little fellow and give him a carrot, without droopping it to the ground and running away like a woman possessed. The crowning moment was when I turned away from the pony and noticed that others who had touched him were greasing their hands up with hand sanitiser........


Sigh.