What I learned about myself this weekend – Adventures in Jeonju( 외국여행자가 바라본 전주여행기)

[cream]

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.

Grace's face portrays exactly how we feel about side-dishes

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.

if you look closely you can see the shredded saffron on top of the leaves

Korean restaurants are judged in part by the quality of their side dishes, so they take them very seriously

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:

the number of ingredients is unusual for regular bibimbap

Then they brought us an egg dish in a dolsot pot, so it cooked right in front of us on the table

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….

..random turtle statues

note the policemen heading for Grace

on the way we learned some new words

The Hanok village was touristy, but it was Korean tourists.  One of the things that I like about Korea is how much the people seem to enjoy their own country – they flock to the mountains when the weather is nice and hike, and they actually go to the historical “traditional” sites.  It makes the word “traditional” slightly more bearable.  It is really overused in Korea.

At the entrance to the hanok village there is a structure that was built to house some important paintings.

We really enjoy how Koreans number their treasures.

The paintings were the Eojin (portraits) of King Taejo – the first king of the Joseon dynasty which started in 1392 and ended in 1910.  It was really cool how there were not just beautiful buildings, but also gardens constructed to house the art.  Also that the buildings were so open and that there was no entrance fee – anyone could come in, walk around the gardens, step inside to look at the portraits and chill out on the benches.  The part of me that really wants to believe that art is accessible to all, and that my English degree was not just a self-indulgent exercise reserved for the wealthy, is always happy in Korea because there are so many public spaces filled with art and with people actually enjoying the art.  It was in Seoul that I first had the experience of being in an art gallery absolutely packed to the brim with people.  I like the idea in principle more than I enjoyed it in practice but it was a nice change from Washington D.C., where the phenomenal galleries stand empty except for the occasional tourist or university student.

There were also plants (granted, cabbage-looking plants) which made it feel like spring

I find this sight soothing. All the art criticism I read at McGill is possibly relevant to the world.

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.

view of the hanok village from on top of a little hill nearby

As you can see from this photo, there are actually a lot of hanoks still standing in Jeonju.  This is a lot more than the number of Hanoks in Seoul.  They are really beautiful and well constructed, and when you have a critical mass of them it makes for a really fun afternoon of wandering through tiny streets.

There was a helpful sign that said "picture spot." I am standing on top of it.

Grace is insipired by the view. You can tell because the photo is in black and white.

practicing the "picture taking angle" that my students taught me during winter camp

The streets in the Hanok village reminded me quite a bit of Gion.  Like in Japan, the spaces were narrow, the houses were beautiful, and there were lots of small architectural details that captured your attention.

tiny streets

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. 

Grace! I can reach the roof.......REACH................fail.

there were cool designs like this everywhere

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

He was just there. Hanging out.

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:

how would you answer this?

We decided that my eyes were keen-sighted and Grace’s were soft.  Most of the questions were sort of like that.  This might be the reason why my diagnosis is not really accurate.  My legs are not actually weak and my arms are not strong. Regardless, I will take it to heart that I need to eat cucumber, pork and cabbage to make up for lack of chill spirit in body.

After the medical center we headed to a Dolsotbap place to have some dolsotbap (after the ladies at the medical center called the restaurant for us and drew us a map – Koreans are amazing).  It was suitably delicious and the owners were very surprised to see us.  In fact, they tried to stop me from putting gochujang in my dolsotbap because it would be too spicy for me, and then complimented us both on our use of chopsticks.  It was pretty cute.

dolsotbap place

our dinner. The dolsot (the stone pot) is really hot, so you get delicious crispy rice at the bottom

On the way to dinner we saw the following sign:

yes, yes it does say Goodface

As you might imagine, Grace now calls me Good-face.  ’We spent the rest of the evening chilling out in a coffeeshop and talking to the owner.  He told us that in Jeonju there were many hard working “country-men and country-women  who like traditional thing.”  He was really sweet and we sat there for a while, enjoying the view and the company.  Finally, my desire to sleep got the best of me (it was like 10:00 pm, I’m pathetic!) and we headed home.

Home during this trip was Jeonju Guesthouse.  JEONJU GUESTHOUSE IS AMAZING!!!!!  Anyone going to Jeonju should definitely stay there – it was great.  The guesthouse itself is just a nice hostel – free internet, spacious dorms, nice clean bathroom.  But the owners were so wonderful.  In the morning, they left us a note to just help ourselves to some toast and jam and butter – which is nice considering that we could have taken other food in the fridge.  And then later that day when we wanted to go to Maisan – a mountain 40 minutes away from Jeonju – the owner’s wife actually gave us a ride there, took us all around the mountain, bought us some candy and then gave us a ride to a different bibimbap restaurant at lunch.  This is what travelling in Korea is like ALL the time.  People just do incredibly kind things for you just because.  It’s like the gentleman in Bangkok who gave me his spot in line when we were in standby, which allowed me to get back to Seoul in time to go to work the next day.  This kind of thing just doesn’t happen anywhere else.  I love Korea.

Anyways, the next morning after consuming the toast in our hostel, we went for our Hanji-making workshop.   It was super fun and we got to speak Korean more.  Man, learning the language makes life so much better here.  It’s really nice to be able to communicate with people, even if they have to talk really slowly for you to understand them.  The woman who taught the little workshop had this soft, gentle voice and she spoke really clearly, which was nice because our teacher in class is fast talker.

This is what the workshop looked like

I am in paper heaven

We both decided to make the pencil case and it turns out that making Hanji crafts is really easy.  I will be doing this a lot from now on.  To make the glue you mix flour with water (and you put a bit of glue in if you want) then heat the mixture up.  And to make the crafts you just take an object and glue pretty pieces of Hanji on top.

before

concentrate

concentrate....

h

our Hanji ajumma

When I told my co-teachers today that Grace and I did this class they laughed and said that only children sign up for these.  I don’t know why.  If I was a child this would be really frustrating and difficult – you have to sit for hours dealing with tiny pieces of paper when you could be climbing things and running around.  We  came out with exciting patterned pencil cases and a new addiction.  Well, I guess for me it’s a new reincarnation of an old addiction.  I love paper so much.

After Hanji workshop we went back to our hostel to pick up our stuff and head over to Maisan.  Our hostel owner who thought that we were already at Maisan was really concerned.  In fact, not only did he get his wife to drive with us, he also gave her a residency card for the area (I guess he lives around there) so that we would get in to the park for free.  I’m not really sure why they were being so nice.  She just shrugged and said she had to take some pictures there anyways for the hostel, and that speaking to us would help her improve her English.  Regardless it was a 45 minute drive to Jinan (the town near Maisan)!  She then walked up the mountain with  us, telling us about it, bought us some candy and drove us to lunch.  Koreans are so wonderful.

Maisan literally means “Horse Ears Mountain”.  That is because the two peaks look like, well, animal ears.  Conceivably they could also be cat or dog ears (depending on the dog, Grace interjects). 

You can decide which animal this looks like

On the road to Maisan – Nadosan. Literally means “me too mountain”

Aside from the neat peaks, the main reason to visit Maisan is Tapsa Temple and the stone towers surrounding it.    In the 19th century, around 1885, a retired scholar named Yi Gapryong began to build stone towers near the Temple.  He piled stone on stone, one after the other, without using any adhesives or mortar.  Over the course of 30 years he built around 120 towers.  Only about 80 remain.  Those 80 have been standing there for more than 100 years, which is insane considering that they’re just piled rocks. 

here are some of the towers

the entrance to temple

somehow he even managed to get them up there

 

Usually people come to the temple to  make their own little towers and pray.  Grace and I made some too, but as usual when it came time to pray I vaguely asked for health and happiness for my family.  It’s just that usually if I’m visiting a place that involves some kind of prayer, I’m either really unhappy about it or I’m travelling.  And when I’m travelling I have nothing to ask for; mylife could not be any better.  I have everything I want.  So usually if I’m at a temple and I’m moved enough, at most I internally give thanks to the universe for life being so good. 

When we arrived at Maisan, we were hit by the usual kitschy touristy stuff that one finds near Korean mountains.  On one hand, the stands are a bit annoying.  On the other hand, it’s really cool that in Korea hiking and going outdoors is popular enough that souvenir vendors can make a living by hanging out near a mountain. 

there was, for instance, a mini bird zoo. Why? Unclear

our favourite sign from the trip

face mountain

yup. The mountain behind us kinda looks like a bear

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. 

ginseng makkoli

our lovely host

We wanted Bibimbap for lunch again, so we went to another well-known bibimbap place right accross the street from the first one.  It was less atmospheric but we remained hopefull.  Maybe this bibimbap would be even better.  When the side dishes came, however, I was disappointed. There were not as many, the plates were not as pretty, and they just weren’t as good as yesterday’s.  Grace liked the kimchi better.  This is how we discovered that we have different tastes in kimchi – Grace prefers a more sour kimchi than I do.  Then the bibimbap came. 

hmmmm....thinking....thinking....

not as good

It just wasn’t as good as 가족회관.  It relied too heavily on gochujang and sesame oil.  While both are delicious, they basically mask the test of everything else, making this bowl of bibimbap indistinguishable from one that I could eat in Seoul.  That’s ok though, we were happy that we tried, and it was still very good.  After lunch we tried to head for the bus station but Jeonju had one more gift for us.  Grace saw it first.

“Alice! Alice I think this is it!!!!!”  We had read about it in the tourist guide the previous night.

street that is desired to walk

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 actual street

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:

Hebrew in Jeonju? Seriously?

금요일에 외국인들과 조촐한 파티 ( 멕시칸푸드 )

 

[두개의 정]

이분 재미있으시군요. 서울에서 제가 느낀걸 그녀도 느꼈네요. 옛날에 내가 바빠서 못느꼇던건지, 요즘 서울내에 갤러리나 공연장에는 여행객이 아니어도 많은 사람들이 예술을 즐기더라구요. 예술을 접하는 일이 일상생활화되어가는 모습들을 보면서 저도 간혹 하늘을 쳐다보며, 어떻게든 스케쥴을 잡아보려고 하는데...ㅎㅎ

[갯마을샘]

에구구... 뭔소리다냐??? 울렁증 도지네요 ㅋㅋ

[소리함]

맛있는 전주 한식과 한옥마을 사진보니 더욱 가보고 싶어지네요..빨리 날짜 공지해서 올려주세요..기대됩니다^^

[미쉘오]

그러게요~~ 저두 머리가 멍~~해지네요. 사진만 눈에 들어오고 ㅎㅎㅎ 암튼 너무 좋았다는 글인듯~~

[노코미스]

우리가 외국의 일상을 특별하게 느끼듯, 그들도 우리의 일상을 이렇게 특별하게 느끼는군요~
아름다운 글입니다.

[상큼왕비]

전주 비빔밥의 매력도 주변의 산들도 멋지죠..동남아는 공기나 ,산 ,음식도 ,울나라의 색다른 매력에 비교가 안되죠 ... (내생각)..후한 인심이 가득한 반찬문화도 짱이라 하던데요....

[아나콘다]

기왕 올려주신는거 해석도 해서 올려주시지...걍 사진만 봤어요. 잘 봤습니다 ^^

[알쏭달쏭]

ㅎㅎ..마르고 닳도록 다니는 저희 동네네요....^^;; 다른 곳에 사시는 분들이 이렇게 사진 찍고 좋았다고 하는걸 보면 괜히 좋다능~

[앵두天下]

나도산이 미투산이되어버리는군요 :)