Suwon Folk Village

Thursday - A couple of hours on the road, and we arrived at the outer Seoul suburb of Suwon to spend the day at the famous Folk Village. It is hard to describe the beauty of this place. A natural forest environment of 243 acres, more than 260 houses from different regions of Korea, all set beside a beautiful river. The whole area is bursting with blossom from towering white magnolia trees, pink azaleas, bright yellow shrubs, and there are pansies, violets and other spring flowers everywhere. There are a range of different traditional buildings, from commoners houses to a 99 section Nobleman's house, plowed fields, some planted with traditional crops such as cotton, wheat, barley, and various other staples. There are old women plucking, sorting, and spinning the cotton, then weaving it into cloth.

There are women dressed in the traditional hanbok dress boiling up large bots of silkworm cocoons, then delicately plucking the cobweb fine strands from each cocoon, and spinning them into silk to make into fabric. (Sam was amazed at this one). There are woman making various types of bean paste, and other traditional foods for storage to sustain them over the cold winters. There are various museums, exhibits, sculptures, children's amusement rides, and performances.

We all sat down with thousands (oh yes, it is school field trip week in Korea - and they all do it at once!) of brightly dressed, noisy little children ranging in age from 2 to 16, to watch the colorful farmers dance. This is best described as a series of men dressed in their colorful handboks, with black hats, with a ribbon fixed on the centre of each hat that they twirl around in patterns, jumping over them in formation. All this is accompanied by much gong clanging, and drum banging. After the performance we spoke to the grandmaster of the troup who was aged 70. He had been dancing and performing this dance for people since he was 10 years old, and now his son and grandson were also in the troupe, entertaining the crowds.

We also watched the clever highwire act. A single (quite elderly) man, balanced on the tightrope in special socks, dancing and sitting crosslegged on the rope at various intervels was very entertaining. We also watched a traditional wedding with all its pomp and ceremony, the bride and bridegroom dressed in their finery (and traditionally they do not meet until the actual ceremony itself. They are promised to each other by their parents at the age of around 5 or 6, then actually don't speak to each other until the wedding night. Goodness!

We all enjoyed our time at the village, and it goes without saying that once again, quite a lot of shopping occurred (bought you a birthday present here Jan).

Off to dinner at a local restaurant, then a walk around the streets to find somewhere for breakfast. This happens sometimes if the hotel we are staying in doesn't provide breakfast. Sunny (our korean guide) likes us to choose a place, then she arranges a running tab for us, so we can choose what we like - a good idea). So tomorrow its Paris Baguette (not very Korean is it??). Decent coffee and bakery items - yum!
Oh one more thing. Have I told you about the high degree of decorating anything that isn't nailed down in Korea? We are constantly amazed everyday by the range of very over the top clothes, furnishings, everything really. For example - check out our bus furnishings - even the water filter at the front has a gold cover and tassles! Note exotic tassled window coverings....  mmmmm.... lovely......