I have already spent more than a month in Busan and it is time to explore other parts of Korea! This Friday we got opportunity to go and explore rural Korea- more traditional one without the walls of skyscrapers and the rainbows of lights. Our school organized us free trip to DamYang MuWol Village, the tiny village that absolutely brings you to Korea that was hundreds years ago.
It should be said that I have no clue how much this trip costs: we were lucky ones to go for free. As well we were given some snacks for the bus, university notebooks and super cool hoodies of PKNU, that was amazing bonus to our trip, though we were looking like big soccer team:)
So before telling about some funny things of our trip, I will mention some drawbacks. The biggest minus of it was time that we spent in the bus: 3 hours one way and 4 hours when we were coming back- so 7 hours in the bus, while the activities of the trip was only 5 hours. So below you can see where the place is.
As well another disadvantage of the trip was weather: it was cold, foggy and raining a lot. But nobody can control it, right?;) So we were given raincoats and were looking like huge white ghosts, that was also kinda fun:)
So now it is enough of negative things and let me tell you, how everything was. There were a few activities that we were doing in the trip such as:
- Making bamboo pipe rice
- Cooking traditional Korean sweets
- Having a tour in the village
- Juknokwon Bamboo Garden
Making bamboo pipe rice
The area where we went is famous for its bamboo. So knowing the passion of Korean people to the rice( you can read about it ), it is not surprising that they connect bamboo and rice together and got some traditional dish:)
We went through all the stages of preparing it. At the picture below you can see all the ingredients needed.
Take a look at the rice: it is not usual long one,it is much shorter as small balls. In the plate on your right you can see some toppings as beans, pine nuts, gingko nuts, chestnuts and jujubes. On your left besides the rice, there are some bamboo pipes.
The process was actually really easy: we were putting rice in the bamboo pipe and then were adding toppings. Afterwards we were pouring the water and covering the pipe with the special paper called Hanji. Then it was time for rice to steam!:)
We were waiting a little bit more than an hour for our lunch. When we took our pipes, they already changed color from green one to yellow. And to tell the truth, it was really tasty!:) Or maybe I am a great cook:)
Cooking traditional Korean sweets
So while our lunch was cooking, we were making some dessert. How do you think, what is the key ingredient? RICE:)
There was a lovely old couple that were showing us how to cook it. First, popped brown rice is taken. You need to prepare it ahead and this process is kinda complicated: at least it needs some time.
Afterwards this rice is mixed with grain syrup, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and ginger
Then this sticky rice is put on special dripping pan and should be leveled out.
Then we are carefully turning it upside down and let it harden for 10 minutes. When the time is passed -the dessert is ready! Just should be cut into eatable pieces, of course:)
Looks good, han?:) I cant say that the taste is really special: seems like rise krispies:) It is really sweet, but goes amazing with coffee ( or maybe for me everything is good, when you are having coffee:) )
Tour in the village
To tell the truth, in this case its better to show how it looks like, because nothing is better than visuals:) Just some facts about it: it is almost 1000 years old and there is the huge decline in population of it, so they are trying to attract new comers. It was actually seen: almost everybody that we met in the street was kinda old.
Juknokwon Bamboo Garden
The last our stop before going home was famous bamboo garden.
To my regret, I cant say a lot about it: we spent a little time there and couldn’t enjoy all its beauty. If you want to get to know something about, read article below: it is really cool:)
http://www.johannemiller.com/2013/juknokwon-damyang-bamboo-park/
But there was actually one thing that we enjoyed a lot: it was some bamboo construction that could say you how old you are according to your size:)
So everybody was trying to squeeze. Sometimes you need to have a help of friends to do it:)
P.S. Girls, if you have butt and boobs, don’t even try to squeeze: it is mission impossible:)
So at the end of my long story I just want to say that even with some minuses of this trip, it was really worth it! And I have surprise for those, who dont like to read long blog post- video that was made by our super cool university coordinator. Enjoy!:)
https://youtu.be/sgivfwd9Soc
P.S. Dont forget that share is the new sexy 🙂