A traditional Korean Village

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After the snow crab festival we embarked on a mammoth three hour bus journey, that was only supposed to take an hour(!), to our accommodation.

We unraveled ourselves from a cramped and now smelly bus in the village of Gae-shil where a group of ajummas dressed in matching uniforms awaited our arrival. They each took a group of weary foreigners and showed them to a room in a traditional Korean house in the middle of their beautiful village, making the rather uncomfortable journey feel so much more worth while.

The house I stayed in had two ondal style bedrooms, a main room containing what appeared to be an antique loom, a kitchen (although minus a hob, oven or any cooking utensils!) and bathroom with shower. The house was very pretty and appeared to be made mainly of wood and was right beside the village hall where the evenings entertainment was to be held.

The village hall looked like a village hall you’d find anywhere in England, it was painted in a nondescript shade of beige, there were children’s paintings on the walls inside and it had a dodgy looking blind in the kitchen window! What set it apart from an English village hall was the traditional Korean dancing taking place outside, massive swings and sam-gip sal being cooked over a special kind of BBQ.

The dancing stopped almost as soon as we arrived as the villagers got to work preparing our dinner. The ajummas who’d showed us to our rooms cooked our dinner whilst the men of the village carried some tables outside then after the food was served stood around encouraging us foreigners to “eat!”

After eating our fill of sam-gip sal Kat, Emily and I spent the evening chatting to people and sipping Hite (Korean larger) before retiring to bed at a decent time to make sure we were fresh for the morning.

This building is called Doyeonjae. It was built in 1886 to commemorate Kim Jong-jik. Kim Jong-jik ws a leading neo-Confucian scholar in the early Joseon Dynasty. He also served in various government posts earning the favour of  King Seongjong. After he died his writings became the basis for the Muo purge of 1498, but his name was later rehabilitated. More information can be found on wikipedia.

* Posted by j150vsc on 01/05/2007.

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