|
국내최고여행카페 - ★여인의향기[싱글여행 해외여행동호회]
http://cafe.daum.net/orange3798
So this weekend Grace and I wanted to peace out of Seoul. I especially, was going through serious travel withdrawal after coming back from Cambodia (about which I will post eventually, it’s just that it’s going to take me so long to describe the 3 weeks of adventures, that I won’t want to blog about Jeonju afterwards). After much consideration we decided on Jeonju – a city 3.5 hours south of Seoul by bus. We were thinking of going to Gyeongju – 4 hours by bus to the south-east of Seoul, but Gyengju will probably be better in 3 weeks once the weather picks up a bit. Jeonju was picked mainly for the fact that it is reputed to be home to some of the best food in the country, as well as quite a bit of history (a rad combination). In fact it is supposed to be the birthplace of both The Joseon Dynasty and bibimbap.
Accordingly, the first thing that we did upon arrival in Jeonju on Saturday morning, is go to 가족회관, Gajokhoegwan, a bibimbap place that I read about on a food blog. The owner, Mrs. Kim, actually has a patent on the name Jeonju Bibimbap. You have to pay a licensing fee if you want to name your dish that. We were not disappointed. First of all, the place was incredibly atmospheric – with stacks upon stacks of gleaming bowls, kettles of green tea on every table, and beautifully arranged side dishes passing by on carts.
After travelling in Southeast Asia, and living in Seoul, we expected to see a lot more foreigners. We were pleasantly surprised to be the only ones in the restaurant. In fact over the course of the whole weekend we saw maybe 4 others. We did see a lot of tourists, however, because Jeonju is incredibly popular with Koreans for taking a weekend trip with their families. Anyways, the side dishes were delicious but soon, the bibimbap came. It looked like this:
We were lost to the world for a while. The food was really really good. As funny as it sounds, we were happy that we had taken so long to get to Jeonju. I don’t think I could have appreciated how good this food was if I had just come to Korea for the first time. I was surprised to find that I could really really taste the difference in the rice (it’s cooked in a beef broth here) and the kimchi. In fact, Grace and I recently discovered that we have strong and, unsurprisingly, differing opinions about kimchi. We ate happily and talked about what we were going to do next, and about how awkward it feels nowadays when we have to eat with a fork and a knife.
After getting our fill of bibimbap, we headed towards the hanok village. On the way we ran into the following gate:
This gate is called Pungnammun. It stands in the Southeast corner of the city. It was built in 1768 – the middle of the Joseon dynasty; one of four, but the remaining gates are no longer there. In the 18th century they used to hang the heads of Christian martyrs on the gate. Grace and I didn’t really know that there were Christian martyrs in Korea. Self: time to learn your freakin’ history. From there we headed further and further into the Hanok village, happy about how nice and warm the weather was and about the fun things that you usually just find in Korea such as….
We walked around for a little while, just enjoying the different possibilities of touristy fun. There were several Hanji stores and workshops (the traditional paper), a calligraphy museum, craft exhibitions, a traditional medicine centre, numerous tea-houses, a hanok “experience” centre, and of course, the architecture itself.
Like in Japan, there was beauty everywhere, in small and unobtrusive ways. The bricks were often etched with pretty designs; there were pretty flower arrangements peeking out of windows and even the graffiti was nice.
Hanoks are cool because of the degree to which they are in conversation with the Korean landscape. Grace and I talk often about how much this is the case, and how the difference between temples in China, Japan and Korea really reflect the differences in the nature around them. It turns out that this is no accident. According to the all-knowing Wikipedia, “Korean architecture lends consideration to the positioning of the house in relation to its surroundings, with thought given to the land and seasons. The interior structure of the house is also planned accordingly. This principle is also called Baesanimsu (배산임수), literally meaning that the ideal house is built with a mountain in the back and a river in the front.”
There is also, obviously, hilarious random things that we don’t understand but enjoy anyways
After wandering aroun for a bit, we decided to go to the Hanji-making workshop. Or, more accurately, during the whole time we were walking around I was like, “Grace I can’t wait to go to the hanji making place. Grace I want Hanji! I am so pumped for Hanji-making! When do we get to see Hanji?”
“OK ALICE WE CAN GO SEE THE HANJI”
Hanji is Korean paper. It’s incredibly beautiful. They make it out of mulberry pulp, and it’s used for all kinds of things. For example, the windows in Hanoks are made of out mulberry that’s treated with bean oil to make it waterproof, because it’s really breathable and good for the summer. It’s also used for calligraphy, paint, decoration, and these days Korean designers are starting to use Hanji to make clothing. I LOVE it. It is so lovely, and it has this beautiful matte texture and you can see the fibers in the paper. The tourist office directed us to this workshop where we could make it, and off we went – really excited.
When we got there, it turned out that we couldn’t make paper that weekend (this was a dominant theme in this adventure, actually). We could, however, watch it being made which was really really cool. The guy would take a giant rectangular, flexible sieve and stick it under flowing water. Then, when the water stopped you could see that there was a white layer of goo that collected in the sieve. He would turn the it over and roll it off the fresh piece of Hanji. He would do this until there was a giant white block of Hanji on the table. At another table, a sprightly ajumma would peel the Hanji off the block, sheet by sheet, and place each piece on a really hot table. Steam would start to come off the paper, and she would brush it with a giant brush to get any wrinkles out – the way you would iron a shirt. Here is a video that we took at the workshop:
http://picasaweb.google.com/alicetsier/JeonjuTimes#5448498975624956178
Even though we couldn’t make Hanji, we still wanted to make stuff out of Hanji. So back to the Korean experience centre we went. We had already been to the Experience centre. In fact, we had gone there first thing because it promised to have, well, experiences. We could, in theory, watch a Pansori performance (a type of folk singing that involves drumming), or learn how to play the Gayageum. However, our visit to the centre went something like this:
Alice: Hello! We would like to learn how to play the Gayageum please!
Woman wearing Hanbok: Um…I am sorry…but the instrument is ours. You cannot play.
Alice:…..
Grace:…but it says outside that we can learn to play it
Woman: Outside?
Alice: Yes, out here. It says that we can learn to play. (Shows woman the sign)
Woman: (understanding) Ah! Yes! No. You cannot do it anymore.
Grace: Oh. Ok. Well, can we listen to Pansori? Is there are performance?
Woman: No, I am sorry only on Tuesday.
Alice: Oh…Well, what about Hanji? Can we make Hanji?
Woman: Sorry, no….
Grace:…..so….can we experience anything?
Woman: No. Sorry.
Not discouraged, back we went. Perseverance would win out in the end and we would end up making something cool somewhere out of something. This time we were headed to the Jidam workshop where we could (in theory) decorate cookie plates, pencil cases, and jars. It turned out to be more difficult than we predicted. We got there, but there was nobody around, so we went outside to see if we had just gotten confused. Luckily, there was a korean man working around the house. It was time to pull out some Korean:
Alice: “아츠시 한지 만들는 곳 어디에요?” Trans: Ajushi (the term you use to address older men), where is the place where you make hanji?
Internal Monologue: WOOOOOOHOOOO! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!! IT WORKED IT WORKED IT WORKED!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Now, this may seem like an overreaction to being able to say a simple sentence. And that’s probably true. It’s just that, we JUST learned the verb stem + 는 last week. It replaces relative pronouns in Korean and it’s really freakin’ hard. It makes speaking in complex sentences very awkward. So if you wanted to say, “the book that I read this weekend, is called Blindness,” you would say, “I weekend-reading-book, Blindness is.” A coffee-shop is not “a place where I drink coffee” it is “a coffee-drinking place.” Once you get into more complicated descriptions – it becomes really cumbersome. The point is, Mark, Grace and I wrestled with this all week. It was one of the first times that it took me more than one sitting to finish my Korean homework. And when we came to class our Korean teacher was like, “meh – y0u guys just gotta practice.” So after battling this grammatical form all week, it was INCREDIBLY exciting to suddenly be in a situation in which I needed to use it, and in which it was more useful than other Korean grammar that I know.
Ok. Maybe that’s exciting only to me. Anyways. Moving on. Ajushi pointed us in the right direction (where we had come from originally) and we went back there, determined not to leave until we got to play with hanji. Finally we found a woman who was working on some sort of inlay. We asked her if this was where we could make hanji and she said that we couldn’t today. We asked if we could come tomorrow, and she said yes. We arranged to come back the next morning at 10 am. This entire exchange also occured in Korean and we left the workshop feeling pretty proud of ourselves. This only contributed to the self-congratulatory mood that we were in that day. Not that this was anything new. Grace and I can be pretty self-congratulatory sometimes. We have conversations that go something like this:
Alice: Grace, how much more fun are our lives than other peoples lives?
Grace: I KNOW! We are so cool.
Alice: I’m so happy you’re my friend!
Grace: I’m so happy YOU’RE MY friend!
Or…(this was around Halloween when we were proud of ourselves because of our rad Halloween costume)
Grace: I want to meet someone with a better halloween costume than us! It would mean that they are as awesome as us.
Alice: Yea, you’re right! But…I doubt that’ll happen. Our costume is pretty great. What could be more great?
And then at the end of the night:
Alice: huh, we didn’t meet anyone who’s costume was as clever as ours….
Grace: no…..
Alice: it’s too bad. That person would have been awesome….
And once after 5 straight minutes of uncontrollable laughter:
Alice: Grace, do you think it’s possible, that we’re only entertaining to ourselves?
Grace: what do you mean?
Alice: well, we entertain each other a lot. So we think we’re really hilarious but what if other people don’t? Maybe we’re not as funny as we think…
Grace:…..no. No way. We’re awesome.
But I digress.
Usually these moods hit us either when we are travelling because both of us love it so much, or when we’re doing something really nerdy and enjoying it a lot (such as spending a Saturday afternoon studying Korean in a coffee-shop and being REALLY happy about it). Pumped full of self-congratulatory happiness, we headed to the Korean Traditional Medicine Centre.
The traditional Medicine museum was probably the highlight of our day. The diagnosis at the beginning of this page came from a test that we took at the center. Granted, the results came from our answers to questions such as this one:
We spent about an hour and a half or so hanging out at the mountain and then decided that it was time to head home. Before we left, however, we stopped for a sip of special Maisan Makkoli (fermented rice wine). It was different from usual makkoli in colour (it was yellow, while normal makkoli is white). The ajumma selling it explained that it contained famous Jinan ginseng. Around the stand, drunk ajushis sang happily and waved cups of yellow makkoli around, while the toddler that was with him dropped his hotteok on the ground, picked it up, considered it briefly and put it back into his mouth. We bought a cup to split between the two of us. The stuff tastes so good that it’s actually really easy to get drunk.
Any interpretations? Our best one was “a street that is damn tired of being walked all over and thinks that it’s its turn to do the walking, thank you very much.” Regardless, we had to make a detour.
The street that is desired to walk was a bit like a smaller, tamer Myong-dong. It was where the youth of Jeonju seemed to hang out. Everywhere else we had been so far, we had only seen families with kids. Here we found all the teenagers and twenty-somethings. Unsurprisingly, the novelty of walking on the street that is desired to walk wore off quickly and we headed to the bus station ready to get home. Not to be deterred by our hurry to get on the bus, Jeonju left us with a final gem:
금요일에 외국인들과 조촐한 파티 ( 멕시칸푸드 )
|
첫댓글 음 ~~ 참좋은 여행을 했다네요. ㅡ,.ㅡ 누가 해석좀?
굿~~좋은정보네요...^^ 외국인들이 체험하는 한옥마을 체험으로 보다 한국에 대한 열정이 많이 생겼으면 좋겠네요.ㅎㅎ
ㅋㅋ 우~ 머라고 한참을 써논거 같은디... 한글도 길면 읽다가 포기한디... 이런.. 이런... 존 여행했다고 열씸히 써논거 같은디.... 뭐라칸다냐. ㅡ.ㅡ;; 참 낭감하네 ㅡ,.ㅡ
My hometown is Jeonju as well. I guess u&ur friend had lovely time there. If u may have any chance to go there again I also recomend u stop by Deokjin Park near by Jeonbuk Nat'l Univ and move to Darakbang where you can eat the most delicious potato with pork stew anywhere else in Korea.