korean folk village

deer-lou.

well another weekend has come and gone. is it just me or do they seem to fly by anymore? sometimes it feels like i blink and its over. this month has been quite busy and this weekend was no exception. there seems to be something going on all the time. i've yet to catch up on my sleep. plus i seem to have this lingering cold of sorts. stuffy nose, coughing, and the brenda vacarro voice. it probably didn't help that i had 4 soju cocktails friday night after taekwondo. i'm not sure what it is about that class but lately i've been wanting a drink afterwards. perhaps its because i'm getting a major workout. i've never sweated so much in my life the other night. of course it didn't help that the 4 kids in my class kept complaining about it being hot so the sabomnim kept shutting the windows. evil. somehow though i did manage to get to bed relatively early on friday night. although i had a restless sleep and was up at 7:30am. even getting up at that hour i still managed to end up running late. what's up with that? i went over to ho's apartment around 9:15am. i wanted to give him his birthday gifts before heading out for the day. we met up with christine and anna in suwan around 11am. at 11:30 we boarded the shuttle bus destined for the korean folk village. unfortunately instead of fun ajummas our bus was filled with children. it was like being on a school field trip. the folk village was quite interesting. kind of like going to epcot or a colonial village. when i was in middle school our class took a fieldtrip to a colonial village where we watched them make candles and cut the heads off of chickens. yes they actually did that. the best part of that school trip was when one kid got hold of the chicken feet and started to chase all the girls around. this is kind of what the folk village was like. without the killing of chickens. here's what the brochure has to say:

traditional houses and living culture
in a natural environment of 243 acres, more than 260 houses from the different regions and the living culture of the later joseon dynasty are revived lively. just feel the ancestral intelligence and wisdom with the various traditional experiences.

traditional gusto and enthusiasm
• exciting and cheerful farmers' music and dance
• breathtakin acrobatics on a tightrope and seesaw performance
• artless, affectionate and traditional wedding ceremony
why don't you indulge yourself in the joy and excitement that our performances give?

flavor of cultural art
korean folk museum and other collections where you can enjoy the lifestyles and the cultural arts of joseon dynasty. modern art museum and sculpture garden where you can enjoy the modern art pieces. experience the flavor of the impressive and cultural arts from the harmony of the traditional and the modern.

leave with precious recollections!
bazzar where you can enjoy the ancient of the traditional korean foods. souvenir shops full of the famous, beautiful and tradtional art products. keep you memories of the korean folk village with the old atmosphere in your heart forever.

that pretty much sums up the experience. i love brochures [but thats a whole post of it own]. what the fails to mention is that there's an amuzement park in the folk village too. it was a beautiful day to be outside. all around the village there are pagodas where people sit and relax or as some did sleep. shoes must be taken off to go into these pagodas. it was cool to see how they lived back then and the various different tools, etc that they used. although after awhile everything started to look the same. these kind of places hold my interest for about 2 hours then i'm all like whatever. the jail and all the torture defvices were cool to see. the best part of the trip was learning about togabes [spelling?] these are folklore monsters that come to get you at night. people use to hang these charm things over their door to keep the togabes away. christine was telling me a little about. i'm going to reach them and when i find out more i'll fill you in. i [heart] togabes. i was a little disappointed that they didn't have any kind of togabe merchandise for sale. hello!! there was a haunted house that had all sorts of mechanical togabes though. that was cool in its own cheesy way. for lunch has this acorn jelly bibamboop which was so good. who knew that acorns tasted so good. those squirrels are definitely onto something. i also had this cold rice drink that was very tastey. and i even found a place that was selling slurpees. i got a pineapple icey which was too good for words. for some odd reason pineapple has become my new thing. for about two weeks i've been hooked on pineapple sunny 10 which is a soft drink. i finally had to put a stop to it. i mean, seriously, how much pineapple soda can one drink? basically we walked around for 6 hours. we even managed to squeeze in a few rides in the amusement park. somehow they got me to go on the viking ship ride. I HATE THOSE THINGS! we had to take a city bus on the way home where this one boy kept insisting on talking to me. lucky me. by the time i reached my apartment i was exhausted. sunday was spent watching tv and cleaning.

here's a rundown of what i saw and did at the village:
1. yon-ja bang-a [mill stone
2. pottery workshop
3. farmer's house in the southern part
4. peasant's house in the southern part
5. house in the northern part
6. cotton weaving workshop
7. large landowner's house in the southern part
8. farmer's house in southern part [bamboo workshop]
9. korean herb shop
10. swing site
11. dutiful son's monument
12. farmer's house southern part [fortune tellers]
13. farmer's house central part
14. nobleman's mansion
15. city dweller's house central part
16. house in northern part
17. haunted house
18. provinical government office
19. inner three passage gate
20. water wheel mill
21. house in central part
22. bazzar
23. seesaw/tightrope performance
24. walked across a stone bridge
25. pharmacy
26. family coaster
27. viking
28. rail road train
29. boat ride
30. music express [a ride that goes around and around]
31. world folk museum [snore. it was like being in cost plus or pier 1]
32. historical drama exhibition [you know how i love my korean dramas]
33. traditional jail and flogging post
34. wild kittens!

i forgot to mention that the folk village is where all the television dramas about korean history are shot. hee hee!

best thing i saw:
little boy soaking wet walking up to his mom who completely freak. i think he took a dip in the murking river.

snaps from korean folk village…
Links

• korean folk village