e_header.jpg)
Monday 23 September
We booked one group tour out of Seoul to the Korean Folk Village and Hwaseong Palace and Fortress to the south. Our driver/guide, Chun Lee was very informative, and also made sure we experienced the delicious Korean hotpot.
Korean Folk Village
The Korea Folk Village is about 40 kilometers south of Seoul, is modelled after an authentic traditional Korean way of life. We saw a variety of house types – mostly arranged from the poorer land owner to the government officials residence.
It is a popular excursion destination for school children, so there were lines of neatly and well behaved little Koreans in bright school uniforms.
Bruce got pulled up during the folk dance performance to help whirl a plate on a batten, and I excelled at throwing sticks into a can – didn’t know about that skill.
We also saw a wedding ceremony reenactment. I wonder how many times that couple have “been married”.
Hwaseong
The blurb from our tour guide says it all…
The wall surrounding the centre of Suwon, the provincial capital of Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, was built in the late 18th century by King Jeongjo of the Joseon Dynasty to honour and house the remains of his father Prince Sado, who had been murdered by being locked alive inside a rice chest by his own father King Yeongjo, having failed to obey his command to commit suicide. Located 30 kilometres south of Seoul and enclosing much of central Suwon including King Jeongjo’s palace Haenggung, UNESCO designated the fortress a World Heritage site in 1997. The Suwoncheon, the main stream in Suwon, flows through the centre of the fortress.
