Korean Folk Village

Three Families came to the Korean Folk Village!  Us, the Rusts, and the Mayos.  Great Friends!

Kevin had the day off today, and we wanted to go off base to experience Korean culture!  We decided to go to the Korean Folk Village.  I did some research to find a way to get there via public transportation.  There were two other families that wanted to join us on our adventure today!  We walked the 15 minutes to the Songtan Station and caught the subway.  When we got to our subway stop and got off, we found that the direct course that google maps had us on, was directly though a guarded gate of a business parking lot.  We asked the guard how to get to the Folk Village and he directs us to take the street and turn left and walk for a while then turn left again.  Lucky for us there were street signs to show the way to the Korean Folk Village.  Sadly the path was not a direct path and took about 45 minutes of walking.  By the time we arrived at the Folk Village, the kids were all exhausted, complaing, sweating and beyond hot.  The kids were all asking if we could go home.  So far, it was not turning out to be a good trip.

Luckily, right outside the gate, there was an icee machine, so for a moral boost we bought all the kids grape and blue-raspberry icee's.  After the kids finished, they were cooled down and had the sugar rush needed to continue on the adventure.  

The Korean Folk Village was really neat.  When we first walked in we saw a few huge rocks with rope and paper all over it.  It was the stone tower for making wishes.  There was rice paper with pens where someone can write a wish.  Once the wish was written, the wisher would tie it onto the rope for it to be burned on the first full new moon of the year along with the rice sheaves.  The wish would then be granted as the ashes go up towards heaven.  We took the time to all add our wishes to the stones.

The Folk Village had four shows that happen twice a day.  We missed the first two shows but made it just in time to catch a horse show.  The girls were in heaven.  There were about six riders that went around doing different type of stunts.  Some used weapons such as spears and bows and arrows.  Others were jumping on and off their horses.

After the horse show, we went to see a traditional Korean Wedding.  This one was a tad boring.  The kids lost interest quickly, because the talking was so drone and there wasn't much to see.  I found it very interesting, but I felt bad as the kids were sitting in the sun.  When the wedding was finished we had a few hours until the next show, so we went to one of the restaurants in the town.  They had a delicious pork cutlet and an amazing salad.  We also took the time to explore the pottery house, the stables, and the grounds.

The grounds were extremely gorgeous.  The traditional Korean architecture was ever present and gorgeous.  

The Folk Village had little houses that we could walk through.  Little A pretended she was grinding grain.

Around the houses were the most gorgeous gardens and flowers.  All the kids took time to stop and smell the flowers.  They begged for a picture with the flowers.

We caught the last two shows:  the traditional music show and the tightrope walker.  During the music show, Kevin and I took Little Monster and went exploring.  The music was so loud and sounded more like a wailing child so we went out and saw more of the grounds.  We returned in time to see the tightrope show.

We only had about 30 minutes until we needed to catch the shuttle back to the subway station.  We used that time to see the Buddhist temple and the absolutely gorgeous WanHyangRoo.

When we got to the temple, the kids were just so excited that they could actually go into a structure, that they all went running inside and started banging the drums and running around in the temple.  They ran ahead of us, so we were not able to stop them; however a small little Korean lady came swooping in and yelling at them in Korean and pushed them out of the temple.  I felt so terribly bad!  The kids were not respectful at all in the temple and so we very quickly left.  I will make it back to a Buddhist temple while I'm here and have a chat with my kids about respecting other's religions.

The day was long, but it was filled with beautiful places to see and rich Korean culture!  It was a great day!