23-24 October 2010
2 weeks ago, I accidentally saw a site about Korean Traditional Experiences in some of its chosen rural areas. They offer these trips to foreigners traveling or living in Korea from August to November 13, 2010 due to the event that South Korea is the one hosting the G-20 this year.
G-20 is a big event for South Korea given that they came from the lowly status back 20-30 years ago. Aside from the World Cup, this is one of the events that they are highly proud of. Rural 20 is a program brought about to develop and show some of the rural areas in South Korea to the foreigners.
Today, my friend, Carol and I joined one of its trip to Naetgang Village. It is located in Gangwon-do (강원도), Northeast of Seoul. It will normally take 2.5 hours to reach the place with good traffic flow. However, today, the traffic was quite heavy since Naetgang Village is located near Seorak-san (서락산), where many of the Koreans and even foreigners are rushing to hike on before the Fall Season officially ends. So, it took us around 4 hours to reach here.
Participants in this specific tour consists of the following nationalities:
1. Korean American
2. Korean Canadian
3. Swiss
4. Canadian
5. American
6. Filipino
7. Chinese
8. Hong Kong Chinese
9. Isreali
10. Japanese Korean
11. Malaysian
12. umm... did I missed anyone...? :)
When we arrived Naetgang Village around 1:30pm, we first had our lunch - Chicken Ginseng Soup (삼게탕)!!!! sumptuous lunch after few days of not being able to eat "real" meal due to tight schedules :( ... After which, we had a short trip in the river, riding a raft! =) It was nice though time was too short. The raft consists of 5 small raftlets wherein 3 persons can ride on each. Only two rowers do the job - one in front and the other one at the back. And believe it or not, the people rowing are the old ones in the village, around 70 years old!!! They are strong and amazing!!! Imagine carrying around 15 passengers plus 2 rowers... :) Good thing was, there was no wave during that time so there was nothing against them except the movements of the passengers which caused the raft to move to another direction as well.
The 70-years old man rowing the raft
We then made a wooden miniature statue - a traditional artcraft of the village. The wood pieces we used were already cut into shapes so we just have to assemble it to look like a bird/duck. And we get to bring it home!!!! =)
We then made Korean Traditional Rice Cake! Wow, it was a hard task to make a 떡 or Ddok (Korean Traditional Rice Cake). Imagine making a dough for pizza or bread, the baker has to knead the dough for some time. But this time, the dough is as big as 1mX0.5mX0.25m using a wooden huge hammer wherein 2 persons alternately hit on the "dough".
Some of the participants pretended to be doing Korean Traditional Marriage too.
Jason (11 years old Hong Kong boy) and Marianne (from Paraguay but speaks good Korean)
Last thing for the day was of course our dinneR! =) We had Samgyeopsal (삼겹살) - grilled pork and a camp fire!!! Well, it was not really supposed to be a camp fire but it was where they got the "fire" for individual grilling in the grilling station.
Samgyeopsal (삼겹살)
Since we arrived Naetgang Village, there was 2 blonde ladies along with TV station crews who arrived after us. They are from MBN and are feauturing the 2 foreigners experiencing the traditional Korea.
Marianne (from Paraguay) and the other one I did not remember the name but she's a Turkish-Korean.
We stayed in a house of one of the Naetgang Villagers. We had the whole room for our use. Full utilities in a regular urban house can be seen and used there; i.e. Computer, Refrigerator, TV, Kitchen, etc. It is just so amazing how advance they can get even if they are in the country side. The Omoni where we stayed at gave us few pieces of small oranges as well as Birthday Rice Cake. *burp*
We had a short breakfast in the village and went ahead to the Mountain Folk Village in Inje-gun to see more of the "Autumn" leaves! =)
Next stop was a Temple -- Suta Temple. It is not that special though it has a major history and meaning to the Koreans. Back in the Joseon Dynasty (if I remembered it correctly), the monks were part of the lowest ranked citizens in Korea. They were out-casted and even asked to leave the city. Thus, they were forced to go to the mountains to build their temples. So, nowadays, if you wanted to see temples in Korea especially those old ones, these can only be find in the middle of the mountains. The temples in the city were all destroyed back then. Before reaching the temple, we have to walk around 10-15 minutes wherein there is a river flow! =)
Now, we have to head back to Seoul! Should there be traffic, we are expected to arrive the city after 5hours. However, fortunately, we arrived Seoul Station in 2hours! =)
It was a good experience going to the countryside village in Korea. It is a chance to learn the traditional living and yet also for a change of environment especially for us - where we are all bombarded with papers, presentations, books, deadlines, etc.! =) The kids are really cute tooooo! =)
Now, back to reality... :(
Karina Marie Ang Chua
24 October 2010
6:59pm Korea Time
No comments:
Post a Comment