Korean Folk Village

Hello everyone!

One of the places you must visit when you are in Seoul is the Korean Folk Village!!  We spent no less than half a day there with my family, and we had so much fun!  =)

As you may have guessed from the name of the place, it's full of Korean traditional houses, household items that you can try out yourself, foods, activities, and entertainment.  It's basically Namsan Han-ok Village on steroids  haha.  So on the scale, Bukchon < Namsan < Korean Folk Village.  

It was also interesting because the Folk Village also portrayed the commoners' lives and houses while the other villages tended to focus more on the wealthy and the noble class.

One of the first things we saw was a traditional Korean wedding.  Usually, this would be a show put on by the Folk Village just to show how it was done, but today, it was an actual wedding taking place!   I guess they allow real couples to have real weddings here in the traditional way if they request to do so. It was really interesting to see how the traditional weddings happened, and it was fascinating to see the garments especially, but we also felt a bit odd being wedding guests at strangers' wedding, so we left before the ceremony was over.

Once we got outside, we decided to try on traditional wedding garments as well! what do you think? do we look good?   =p  

My uncle decided to get in on the fun and tried his own Hanbok on  ;)

The day was pretty hot, so after our shenanigans and walking around in the heat, we decided dto take a little break in a gazebo.  Korean gazebos (the common people kind) were built rather high above the ground, and I think because of that it's really breezy and cool inside.   

As we were resting, these guards came by telling us to attend the mayor's birthday party, so of course, we had to go and see how fancy the mayor's birthday party would be like.

It was quite the party, and just about anyone and everyone was in attendance. The guards were there, the mayor's friends were there, the Gisaeng (Korean women entertainers) were there, and the whole village seemed to be present, including the beggars.

We began with the gift giving to the mayor where all the townsfolk brought gift over, and most of the kids seemed to enjoy it, except this terrified little girl  haha   so sad, but so adorable  ;)

Then of course the Gisaengs had to come dance and entertain everyone with their womanly guile...

the Mayor's friend also wanted to get in on the action, and entertained(?) us...  haha

but wait!  there was a big twist to the story, and there was intrigue and corruption and...!!!  but I won't ruin that for you in case you decide to visit the Korean Folk Village and attend the Mayor's birthday party in person  ;)

having thoroughly enjoyed ourselves at the Mayor's birthday party, we began our wanderings once more.  We saw a traditional fan making artisan at work,

tried a traditional grinder (I think a cow was supposed to have done the work, but we didn't mind becoming the cow for a minute  ;)

Tried the traditional swing, which you ride standing up, and is deceptively difficult...  but the boys seemed to have no problem  ;)

Then we tried our hand at some more ancient tools.  It's crazy how creative and ingenious traditional people were in thinking up tools with the limited materials they had at their disposal!

Frolicking around like that leaves one quite hungry, so we left the fun in search of food.  The grounds of the village are quite beautiful, and we got to experience some of that as we walked to the food court.

Right before we walked into the food court, we found this traditional candy maker, and we had to have some.  I know, I know, you should wait to have your sweets until you are finished with your main meal, but we just couldn't resist!  Our excuse is that the 'candy' is made of sweet potato, and has no artificial sugars so it's ok..?  haha

Besides, we were still ravenously hungry by the time we got to the food court, and we still finished an incredible amount of amazing traditional foods.  The only picture we managed to get are these two because we were too preoccupied with eating once the food came out.. so I apologize for the lack of pictures of the food.. haha 

the process of spoon making

You have to have a dessert after the meal, of course, (even if you had dessert before the meal) so we had this thing called 'Jjondegi'.  Apparently it used to be really popular as an after-school snack, even when I was in Korea, but I had never had it before.

I guess it was ok..?  I'm not really sure what it was made of, and while it was fun to heat it up over the coal fire, I wasn't too much of a fan of the actual food item  haha

We needed to walk off some of the food, so we took a leisurely walk back to the events section of the village to see if anything fun was happening.

and indeed!  amazing things were happening!

First, we witnessed a tightrope walker who not only walked, but also bounced and jumped and kicked on the rope like he was merely on a trampoline!

Then we witnessed some amazing feats by a few horses and their riders.

We got some of their amazingness on video so that you could share the experience it with us.

Isn't it absolutely incredible?!  I was in awe, cheering and fearing for their lives all at once  haha

I hope you enjoyed this little virtual trip to the Korean Folk Village, and I hope that you get to experience it for yourself in person sometime soon! =)

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny

Namsan Seoul Tower and Namsan Han-ok Village

Hello everyone,

Another pair of Seoul attractions that is fun to see is the Namsan Seoul Tower and the Namsan Han-ok Village pair.  I know, I know, we just went to the Bukchon Han-ok Village, but this one is different and much more fun to visit in my opinion!

We began our day early in the morning to try to get to the tower that you can see pretty well just about anywhere.  It should have been pretty easy to find according to my aunt (and many others that we asked along the way), but for some reason we had the most difficult time finding the place!  

It shouldn't have taken a lot of walking and 3 different bus rides to get there, but you know... at least we got there!  haha  and we got to see a lot of different parts of Seoul in the process, like this statue... but we can't really remember who he was..  oops  

Anyway, the important thing is that we got there, and it was definitely worth the visit.  First we started out with the picture taking in front of the tower that we tried so hard to see, only to find that it is pretty difficult to get the whole tower in the picture!  David did manage to successfully take this picture, but we won't tell how many failed attempts there were   ;)

And then we proceeded to take some more photos with this sculpture in the front of the tower. I guess he is the tower's mascot?  either way, he's cute  =)

But the real reason we went to see the tower was for the lovers' locks!  Namsan tower is famous for all of the locks thousands of lovers have left behind either in these trees or on the fence over the years.  

Whether the love lasts or not, whether it's puppy love or for the long term, there's something really sweet about the gesture.

so of course, we got right on board and got our own overpriced lock from the store. haha. If you are planning ahead to go to the tower and do the lock thing, I would recommend getting a lock ahead of the time and saving some $$  ;)  and then you can spend the saved money on food up there! =p

The lock kindly came with a permanent marker, so we wrote our little love message on the lock,

and lock it in place, and there it shall stay until we come to look for it again  =)

The hike up and down from the tower is also beautiful, but we didn't take any photos hiking up because we were (mainly me) struggling pretty badly  =p  so here's a shot of the hike on our way down!

Once you get down the mountain, hop on a bus to the Namsan Han-Ok Village! 

Before you go in, stop at a Hodooguaja stall (walnut cookie) and grab a small bag of these goodies to snack on while you stroll around the village.

It looks like walnuts, and it's filled with sweet red bean filling!  so cute, and so delicious!

Once you're in the village (for free), stroll around the grounds while munching on the cookies!

We got some traditional Hanbok on for the stroll, you know, just to fit in  ;)

The village is really well kept, very beautiful, and quite large.  You can spend at least an hour just strollin' with a companion of your choice  ;)

What I really like about this Han-ok Village is that all of the traditional houses are open and traditional household items are on display!  In the Bukchon Village, we could only see the outside of the houses, and for me, it was much more interesting to be able to see the inside as well.

As we were strolling, we found that people back then were apparently much shorter back then..  David and I are not the tallest of people, and we still had to duck down to go through some of the doorways! So be careful when you go through them  ;)

The different houses/buildings are connected by these giant courtyards, and in one, there is a station with this Korean this traditional game that you should try. I was pretty bad at it, but David almost got it in multiple times!  

Keep trying until you get one in.  haha just kidding  =p  although I'm sure anyone and everyone would be better at that than I was  haha!

In the next house, we found this traditional medicine man who looked incredibly bored! poor guy!  I didn't know they had people on display as well, but it was interesting to see an actual person dressed in traditional clothes, and doing traditional things.

and how cute are his shoes!

If you walk outside, there are more things to see, and more things to try.  Like theses giant ceramic pots that were used to make/store things like kimchi, soy sauce, and various other pastes/sauces.  Or the deceptively heavy iron pot that you can try to lift  ;)

At the end of our stroll, we walked in on these master weavers who can make just about anything and everything out of hay!

My favorite was this guy and his little friend!  so sweet  =)

Once you've had your fill of the past and the Korean traditional life style, go in search of some nice cold Naengmyun to cool off. 

It gets pretty hot in the summer in Seoul, so Naengmyun (cold noodle) is the perfect meal!  We went back to Insadong to try the famous Naengmyun there, but you could really try just about anywhere, I think, and be happy with the results. Also, you could ask anyone on the street where they would recommend, and they will point you to the right place  ;)

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny