Jeonju Hanok Village

It's 08:30 Saturday morning here in Jeonju, I've been awake since 06:00 for some unknown reason and have exhausted Bejeweled on my phone for the past two hours, Sophie is still asleep so I figure now would be a good time to try and catch up with the blog.

Now the good thing about my phone (Lumia 800) and I guess any smart phone these days is that when you take photos it also registers the time, date and location. The down side to that, is I can see how far behind I am with my blogs, and should probably stop waffling uninteresting bull and get on with it!

So here it is, if I may take you back to the morning of July 22nd 2012, we've already been in Jeonju for a month and a half by this point and experienced so much already, yet not entered the traditional area of Hanok Village. Yes We've been here before to the main street where we met Casanova - as mentioned in a previous post - but not entered into the walls of Hanok.

As you enter the main street, a short walk and on your left hand side you come to the main gate. It was free to enter but now they charge but its very cheap, works out about £1.50. As you approach, two traditionally dressed warriors stand guard and remain emotionless and statuesque as tourists pose and take photos. I suppose in much the same way as the queens guard only its us western folk with the cameras.

We we're told that this small village behind us was actually built to enshrine the portrait of General Yi Seong-Gye - King Taejo, founder and 1st King of the Joseon Dynasty. Jeonju was King Taejo's families ancestral hame.

The restored portrait of King Taejo

We visited Hanok on a Sunday afternoon which turned out to be the perfect time to go, there was lots of activities going on in the village. aWe had a go at some traditional print making and got to dress up in traditional official clothing. You do have to pay, but it works out about £1.

Above you can see our final prints, one being a pattern and the other is a map of the traditional area. At the bottom you can see the outer wall, a little above the in the centre you can see the main gate where we had our photo, then in the centre of the picture is where the courtyard is that houses the portrait of the King. This one however isn't the original, that can be found in the museum round the back to the left where the two isolated huts are.

Traditional Officials Clothing

Here we are sporting our finest Korean traditional officials attire, I was fine with this until we went round the corner and found that I could have dressed up as a Korean warrior! Will have to wait until next time though. Anyway I wan't to try and keep this short but if you would like to see all our photos from our trip to Hanok please follow the links below.

Hanok Village Pt1     Hanok Village Pt2