Mysterious Mt Maisan and Jeonju Folk Village

Temple Dragon

This weekend, Megan and I went on a trip with Seoul Hiking Group to Mysterious Mt Maisan, and Jeonju film festival.

Mysterious Mt Maisan and Tapsa temple

Mysterious Mt Maisan and Tapsa temple are amongst the top 10 scenic places to visit in South Korea.

Mt. Maisan Provincial Park is located in Jinan-gun, Jeollabuk-do.

While we were there, the cherry blossoms were just about still in bloom. The wind was blowing the petals off the trees covering people, and the ground in beautiful wispy light pink. It was a magical sight to see.

Tapsa Temple had a festival atmosphere and there were different traditional South Korean performances throughout the day.

My favourite performance was this Traditional Pansori (South Korean music). The group of girls drumming and synchronised dancing was completely mesmerising (I wish I could do that), it was so cool!

Traditional Pansori in South Korea

Tapsa Temple is surrounded by stone pagodas. They were built by a hermit Monk who lived at Tapsa Temple many years ago. He built over 120 pagodas, but only about 80 still exist today. Apparently there is something very mysterious about these pagodas… No matter how bad the weather, even during the worst storms, they never sway or fall.

Stone Pagoda

There is a South Korean myth about Mount Maisan. The Korean myth tells a story of two Gods who came down from the sky and had a child while they lived at Tapsa Temple.

Another strange story from Mt. Maisan involves the gravity-defying icicles. When the water freeze in winter, it forms icicles which point upwards towards the sky. Apparently, nobody knows quite why or how this happens, making Mt Maisan all the more mysterious…

Obviously we didn’t actually get to witness the gravity-defying icicle phenomenon during the Spring Cherry Blossom season.

My first Korean Love Motel experience

After we visited the temple, we travelled to our accommodation which was a Korean Love Motel, where we shared a room with two lovely Korean ladies.

Traditional Tea Ceremony

Our new roommates kindly fed us snacks and performed an impromptu tea ceremony for us in our room, so my first Korean Love Motel Experience was pretty sweet.

Makegoli Tasting in Jeonju

Later we went Makegoli tasting, here I tried black bean Makegoli for the first time. It wasn’t bad, but I think I prefer rice wine Makgeolli.
We had 26 different side dishes to accompany the Makegoli tasting. Being a picky eater, there were several that I didn’t try, but the broccoli was pretty tasty.

Jeonju International Film Festival

On Sunday morning, we watched a Japanese film called ‘blindly in love’ at the international film festival.

Film: Blindly in love, Director: ICHII Masahide

Film synopsis: ‘An abnormally introvert man is blindly in love with a blind girl from a wealthy background. They love each other conditionally, but others see them in a different way. An impressive comedy’.

The film was slightly dark and obscure, the ending particularly bitter-sweet There were plenty of comical references about a Japanese family, relationships and marriage that kept the audience amused.

In the afternoon, we visited Hanok village and had a bibimbap cooking class.

Jeonju Korean Folk Village

Jeonju is significant historically because it was the spiritual capital of Korea during the Joseon Dynasty and also because the Yi Royal Family originated there. There are gorgeous historical remnants and an amazing folk village, it is the largest and best one for experiencing ancient Korea.

Jeonju Hanok Village is located in the city of Jeonju and overlaps Pungnam-dong and Gyo-dong. There are over 800 traditional Korean ‘hanok’ houses!

Whilst wandering around Jeonju Folk Village, we came across a traditional Korean wedding ceremony. Here, we managed to observe the proceedings and soak up the celebratory atmosphere for a short period of time.

Bibimbap Cooking Class

Next, we attended a Korean bibimbap cooking class. The best bibimbap in the world is made in Jeonju in South Korea, this is because it originates from here.

We prepared our Bibimbap dish in the back garden of the teacher’s home. She told us that historically the villagers would prepare large dishes of Bibimbap in this manner, and then share these amongst the villagers and they would all sit down to eat together.

Sitting down to eating Bibimbap in a traditional Korean family home

I really enjoyed this weekend trip organised by Seoul Hiking Group. In one weekend, I managed to successfully cross the following off my ROK bucket list: