Chuseok 2009: Namsangol Hanok Village

Saturday, October 3 was Chuseok. Chuseok is one of the biggest holidays in Korea. I got almost the whole week off, and about a dozen Asian pears, to boot!

Apart from baking pies the whole week and doing pretty much nothing around the house, we did venture out on Chuseok Day with some friends. We visited Namsangol Hanok Village.

A Hanok is a Korean traditional-style house. The Hanok Village is thus a cluster of Korean traditional-style houses set up with rooms to look as they would have in ye olden days. There are a number of Hanok villages in Korea, and the one at Namsan has a large open area for big events.

When we arrived, the place was packed. There were people doing traditional crafts and playing traditional games everywhere.

It was quite a lovely day. Some people were flying kites. That is Namsan Tower at the top of Namsan in the background.

There is a little pond with foliage. It is a nice spot for some nice landscaping, with the modern buildings towering in the background.

There was a large pavillion in the middle of everything where people would gather to rest in the shade on the warm day.

Different rooms of the Hanok were set up to look like they might have some time ago. Here is one room with a bed, a dresser, a table, and a lamp in the background.

Here is a kitchen. There is a spindle but also some kimchi jars.

Kimchi jars sit amongst the lovely autumn foliage.

This is a rice-cooker.

I find Korean architecture to be quite aesthetically pleasing…

A garden. There was traditional music playing, and we were all fooled at first, thinking someone would actually be sitting around the corner playing the fiddle. Alas, it was a recording, broadcast from strategically-planted speakers.

Near the Hanok Village is the Korea House, a super-expensive tourist destination where people can eat a meal and watch traditional performances. They had many food displays. Above is a table set up with foods for ancestors.

Cabbage kimchi, standard fare for most meals in Korea.

Rice cakes steamed on pine needles – traditional food for Chuseok

The outside of one of the buildings – I can’t remember if it is the Korea House or one of the Hanok buildings.

So what did we do besides just look around? Plenty of stuff! One of the things I love most about Korea is that, while you may be able to do a lot of cool stuff that costs money, there’s almost always something to do that costs nothing (or next to nothing).

PapaFish plays jegi chagi, or, as we call it, Korean Traditional hacky-sack…

Here’s a game I can’t seem to remember the name of…or find it on the internet

PapaFish is kind of a natural at games, of course, so he was a pro from the start!

There was, of course, the obligatory hanbok-wearing event. TheFry hates hats.

This one is a little better…

So what does a munchkin like TheFry do at an event like this? He chills! He watches games, he looks at the rooms, and he charms people! There was even a point where we had to give a premature goodbye to some lovely people because a crowd was starting to form around the stroller!

And who can blame them?

By the end of the day, he was a little tuckered out.

He made a very lovely courtesan.

Thank you to our wonderful friends, who lent us their camera and took us around! We had a lovely time.