Jeonju Hanok Village (For Real) and More

If you read yesterday’s post, my first from Jeonju, Korea, you’ll know that I went to see the Jeonju Hanok Village because it gets top billing in my guidebooks. You’ll also know some other details:

• I used one of my Korean mapping apps to direct me to the Jeonju Hanok Village.
• The spot it directed me to was in the middle of a few heavily commercialized and brutally garish blocks of the village.
• I suspected there was more to the Jeonju Hanok Village, but my phone battery was running low, and I forgot my external battery pack at the hotel. So rather than exploring more, I headed back to my hotel because I needed a functioning mapping app to find it.
• My walking tour app doesn’t have a guide for Jeonju. But it has blog articles for cities for which it doesn’t have guides. The subscription I had for the guide let me read the articles online, but it didn’t let me download them for offline use. Nor did it let me use, neither online nor offline, the associated maps and navigation that would take me to places mentioned in the articles.
• When I got back to my hotel, I splurged the few bucks per year extra needed to upgrade my subscription to include articles and the associated mapping and navigation.

With that recap complete, let’s jump to today.

Fortified with my external battery pack to alleviate my phone range anxiety and bolstered with my new navigation options, I walked to a specific interesting street in Jeonju Hanok Village. But first, I stumbled on a couple of sights along the way.

After wandering around Jeonju Hanok Village for a while, I took in another nearby sight.

Toward the latter part of the morning, I encountered my first rain of this trip. It wasn’t much. I persisted. I’ve been in Korea for a week and a couple of days. So I guess I was due.

Introduction done. Details to follow immediately.

Pungnammun Gate

Yesterday, on my way to the Jeonju Hanok Village, I passed an impressive-looking building on a small plot of land in the middle of a one-lane traffic circle. A prettily painted, large construction hoarding box blocked the entrance. I looked at the building from the front, but didn’t know what it was.

I intended to mention it and post a picture of it yesterday, but I think I forgot to do so. I’m not going to go back to that entry to check. Yesterday’s post was too darn long. I can’t believe anyone was dedicated enough to plow through the whole thing. Then again, maybe nobody did.

Today, I returned to Jeonju Hanok Village, aided by my newly subscribed-to walking tour app’s articles navigational feature. It took me past the building again. I looked at the articles’ map, which I didn’t have yesterday. It had a sight dot where the building was.

(Note to sticklers: In the walking tour app, when you download articles for a city, it creates a map with dots marking the sights mentioned in all of the articles you download in that city. It’s not a different map for each article. So, the positioning of the apostrophe in “articles’ map” is, indeed, correct.)

It’s not a building at all. It’s Pungnammun Gate.

My guidebook mentions it. I just didn’t know where it was, but it was there all the time. And it is impressive, construction hoarding out front notwithstanding.

My guidebook says it’s one of four city gates built in 1734 and has since been restored. I posted the picture I took, but I think I forgot to post, yesterday, along with one I took from the other side this morning.

Jeonjucheon River

The route to the street in Jeonju Hanok Village that I sought took me almost to the Jeonjucheon River, which runs through Jeonju. I was supposed to turn left on the road that runs beside the river.

But if I continued on the street I was on, it would take me on a bridge over the river. I crossed that bridge when I came to it. That is, I crossed it halfway to get a view and a picture of the river.

I saw another bridge farther along the river in the direction I was supposed to head. It turned out it was at the Jeonju Hanok Village street where I was supposed to turn away from the river to proceed deeper into the village.

I crossed that bridge when I came to it, too.

The second bridge is rewarded with a provided pin on my app’s map. It’s the Namcheongyo Bridge. This bridge is a little unique in that about halfway across, on one side, there’s a handsome wooden, open-sided pavilion overlooking the river. The public can, and I did, go in and peer out over the river, protected from the rain that was still more than an hour off when I was there. However, as is the case in many places with wooden floors here, you have to, and I did, take off your shoes to go in.

I saw that there are walking paths on either side of the river. Depending on my time and the weather, I might walk a piece along it this afternoon, tomorrow, or the following morning before I have to catch a train. We’ll see, dear.

(Note: I typed the above paragraph this morning while sitting on a bench that was also a swing with a bit of a roof over it. It had started to rain at that point. So I sat and rocked for a while under the partially protective roof and typed that and some of the other preceding paragraphs. But I didn’t finish and publish this post until I got back from my afternoon activities. So I already know whether I walked along the river this afternoon. But I’ll maintain the mystery. I know. I know. The suspense is probably almost too much to bear, isn’t it? Sorry about that.)

Gangam Seoye Center

Beside the riverside road I walked along, on the other side of it from the river, just outside the Jeonju Hanok Village, stands a building that looked handsome and welcoming. A bilingual sign in front said it was the Gangam Seoye Center. Obviously, that was a typo. It’s the Gangam Seoye Centre. What’s this “center” nonsense?

(But, despite what my spellchecker thinks, “Gangam” is correct. It’s not Gangnam in this context.)

Immediately below the name of the centre, there’s a line that helpfully (at least, helpful to me) said: “(Seoye: Korean traditional calligraphy).”

Farther down on the sign was an explanation of the centre’s purpose: “This is the first Seoye exhibition center (sic) in Korea, which is operated to inherit and develop the traditional Seoye culture. It is the space where Gangam Song Sung yong and famous Seoye showcase permanent works and manages Gangam’s relics and collections.”

The centre was open and free, so I went in. The exhibits were in two rooms spread out over two storeys.

Most of the displays were beautiful, thick-stroke painted black-on-white calligraphy. Some also had some lovely black-on-white drawings accompanying the calligraphy. Or the calligraphy accompanied the calligraphy is probably a more accurate way to say it.

There were also a few newspaper clippings hung on one wall. I don’t know how they are related to the calligraphy. They were Korean newspapers. And unlike the bilingual sign in front of the Gangam Seoye Centre, the calligraphy and the only signage I saw inside was unilingually Korean.

Jeonju Hanok Village

I’m thrilled to report that there is much more to the Jeonju Hanok Village than what I saw yesterday. It is much more extensive. By navigating to a point specifically mentioned in one of GPSmyCity’s articles, I was able to head straight for a section of the village that I found much more enjoyable.

There was significantly less commercialism in other sections of Jeonju Hanok Village than the ones I saw yesterday. The buildings, without any garish signs, looked quaint and attractive. Most of the hanok buildings were still occupied by restaurants and shops, but their signage was more discreet and refined. And some of the hanok houses didn’t sport any signs and looked like they were still residences.

I had a much better impression of Jeonju Hanok Village today than I did yesterday.

Plus, I did walk through the garish section again today. There were far fewer people there today, a somewhat drizzly Monday, than yesterday, a sunny Sunday. The diminished crowds make the garish section look a little less garish. People ruin everything. Someone should do something about that.

Omokdae Historic Site

The Omokdae Historic Site is atop a hill beside the Jeonju Hanok Village. There’s a handsome, old, open-sided pavilion up there.

A bilingual sign told me that, “Omokdae is where Yi Seong-gye threw a party in 1380 to celebrate the victory over a battle at Namwon in which he and his men defeated Japanese pirates. Imokdae, located 400m away on the other side of the nearby pedestrian bridge, is believed to be the place where. Yi Seong-gye’s 4th-generation ancestor, Yi An-sa (?-1274) had lived.”

So, the Omokdae Historical Site commemorates a party.

The site is in a forested area. The pavilion is worth a gander. And being atop a hill, there’s a good view from there. I’m glad I went.

I didn’t go to Imokdae. I probably should have because it wasn’t far. But I didn’t. Don’t ask me why I didn’t. I just didn’t. Maybe tomorrow. We’ll see, dear.

Tea at Haengwon

One of my guidebooks recommended visiting Haengwon. It’s a hanok house that’s several blocks away from Jeonju Hanok Village. In fact, it’s not far from Pungnammun Gate. What makes it unique is that it is built around a small Japanese garden with a smaller pond.

The guidebook said that it’s closed on Tuesdays. As I said, today is Monday. I’ll be leaving Jeonju a little after noon on Wednesday. So today seemed like the day to go.

Plus, when I finished with Omokdae it was close to noon. My guidebook said that Haengwon operates as a cafe these days. I figured it would be a great place to get a light lunch.

I figured that, but I figured wrong. They serve only teas and Americano coffees. I had a traditional Korean ginger tea.

It was well worth going. The house was lovely, and the garden was beautiful. I saw what I thought were goldfish at the bottom of the pond. But I’m not sure. They weren’t moving.

It’s possible they were red leaves that sank for some reason. I forgot to mention it at the time, but the guide at the Secret Garden in Seoul pointed to a maple tree that wasn’t like the maple trees back home. She said that that particular variety in Korea has smaller leaves than normal maple trees. (I can confirm that.) Plus, when the leaves come out in the spring, they’re red. They turn green in the summer and then red again in the fall. The circle of life.

There were some red-leafed plants in the Japanese garden. I don’t think they were maples. But it might have been a few of their inadvertently sloughed-off leaves I saw. Or they might have been goldfish, but if so, I hope the little fellows are okay.

After my enjoyable, but unfulfilling tea, I left and found a nice dumpling place where I grabbed the light lunch I craved.