Dano Festival Experience, Day 2

Day 2's events were jam packed.

First, since the lodging is near a lake, Aaron and I woke up and walked to the lake at around 7am. We just took a little walk and took some pictures of the lake. The lake almost reminded me of West Lake in Hangzhou, except a lot less people and less pagodas and temples. It was pretty peaceful and we did enjoy our walk a lot. There was also a temple (Gyeongpodae) on top of a little hill next to the lodging area so we walked up there and took a few pictures of the lake view.








Then at around 8 we met up with the rest of the foreigners and our guides, and the bus took us to breakfast, which was sundubu aka soft tofu. It was soft tofu stew in some water, and we had to mix flavors (such as soy sauce, or kimchi, or bean paste soup, etc into it. It looks like cottage cheese but it was actually pretty good.


After the breakfast we took a long and windy road to the mountains near the city. It took awhile and but finally we got there. First the guide explained about two shrines in the mountains, and then we took a little hike. First we hiked up to an area, and then we hiked down to another view point. The hike itself wasn't too bad, but sometimes the leaves made the ground slippery so I fell once unfortunately. But other than that, it was a decent hike. The views at the end were pretty good as well, lots of mountains right next to each other.











After the hike we took the bus again, and ended up at this little old village. A lot of the houses were abandoned, but there was still a lot of the farms still there, as well as a little old spring (that lived a few small frogs). It was pretty neat to see what the old Korean farm houses looked like. There was a little mini hike through the wooded area to see some really large rocks (Crane Rock) as well.






t


Finally at the end, we had lunch. It was a pretty good lunch, and we had this interesting rice thing, where we got rice in stone pots, and we scraped and ate the rice in another bowl while hot water is poured into the stone pot to make a ricey drink. There were also tons of banchan, including fish, japchae noodles, tempura, tofu, seaweed, pancake, etc. We did fill up pretty well.





After that lunch the program was over so we all headed back to the bus terminal, where we took buses and finally got back to Anseong around 7. Click here to read more

Dano Festival Experience, Day 1

The last two days (Wed and Thurs) we went on a field trip to a city, Gangneung, in another province, Gangwon-do. Gangneung was on the east coast of Korea, so the trip took about 4 hours in total, although we had to transfer buses in Seoul.

We did this Dano Festival Experience for Foreigners, which included some field trips, some food, and lodging for one night. It was good because we had a break from teaching, and it was on a weekday as well.

The first day (Wed), we got there around 1-2, and of course we were too late, since they didn't start the checking people in until maybe 3.

The dano festival grounds was pretty big thoug, so we explored around. There was an open market that sold everything from dried seaweed to coconuts to keychains to dresses to underwear to toys to bread to dried squid. It was pretty interesting looking at the different things. There were also a few stages that had some singers or dancers as well.

konglish poem

There were a few interactive activities to be done, so we painted some masks and a fan. Mine didn't come out too well, but it was all fun.

free rice wine!

Later that day, we met up with the other foreigners and we all headed towards Gyeongpo beach at night. Even though it was dark, it was pretty, and we enjoyed smelling the ocean water and feeling the breeze on our faces. It was such a change from where we live.

Oh, and the housing was a traditional log cabin like building, but unfortunately they divided us into sexes so I was stuck in the girls' place whereas Aaron and Glen went to the guys' place. Oh well.

Click here to read more