Feeling like a Korean Princess in this Hanbok dress. Somehow I wonder how amazing this world for having so many kind of different cultures in around the world, and each has their own uniqueness. The rich culture that Korea has certainly become the interesting point of tourism community. South Korea is really popular with their palaces and traditional villages that being preserved and now become the UNESCO heritage sites.

“Okay, today’s itinerary, we will dress up in traditional Korean clothes and wandering around the Korea traditional village” said Jeannie our tour guide. Pretty much I thought that day was going to be a lot of fun !! Just 10 minutes away from our hotel in Hansung Hotel Jeounju, there was another lady dress up in Korea traditional dress explained the general information of the village. She walked up to the stairs in order to get the view from above. Just 5 minutes we arrived at the view point, it started to be raining, we kept walking but unfortunately the rain remained harder.

We decided walked down and stopped the activities until the rain over. I was so worried as the rain was getting harder and there wasn’t sign to stop in the next few hours. Couple of minutes later, Jeannie came up and brought us some umbrellas, we managed to go to the paper craft workshop where we will do the craft thing.

I know God heard the pray of indonesian lady who really wanted dress up like princess for once in her lifetime, the rain stopped and we came back to Jeonju Hanok Village after lunch. It was pretty sunny after the rain, and Jeonju Hanok Village was getting more and more crowded. As Jeannie said, there are couple of Hanbok rent houses, they have variety rent prices, it depends on what kind of dresses that we choose.

First thing to do when arrive at the workshop, I were given the locker key to keep all the stuffs safety. And then the staff asked me to choose which dress I would like to wear. There are 2 rows which divided by its price.

The rent price for Female Hanbok Clothes (2 hour) :
- Casual Hanbok (no pattern, and plain colour) cost around 5,000-10,000 won (5-10 USD)
- Pattern Hanbok (floral, colorful) cost around 15,000-20,000 won (15-20 USD)
 
The rent price for Male Hanbok Clothes (2 hour) :
- Casual Hanbok (no pattern, and plain colour) cost around 8,000-10,000 won (5-10 USD)
- King Hanbok (floral, colorful) cost around 15,000-20,000 won (15-20 USD)

I felt so comfy wearing a hanbok, and it was really easy to use !! There was just 2 steps to complete the look. First step would be the dress (the skirt) and the second step was, put the bolero (the top). After finished dress up, the lady let me sitting down and she did my hair bride, the last one was put the headband. Voila !! now I’m ready to walk beautifully like a Korean princess. Almost at the end of main street, there was a palace named Gyeonggijion to complete your picture setting place absolutely !

Surprisingly, not only foreigner tourists wore the hanbok but also the local tourists ! You will see so many couples walking around and did selfie together in hanbok costume. Even I successfully captured a couple who were doing a pre-wedding photo shoot with their metal photographer (read tripod).

What else you can do in Jeonju Hanok Village ?? Yes FOOODD !! Along the main street of this area are food stalls, restaurants and souvenir shops. You will definitely feel hungry because of the smells, even though you just ate 3 times before that.

HOW TO GET THERE
By Bus
- Gangnam Bus Terminal – Jeonju (2 hrs 40 mnts)
- Gwangju Bus Terminal – Jeonju (1 hr 30 mnts)
- From Jeonju bus terminal, take bus number 5-1 or 79, get off at Jeondang Cathedral (Hanok Village) bus stop

By Train
- Yongsan Station (KTX, Semaul, Mugunghwa) – Jeonju Station
- From Jeonju Station take bus number 12, 60, 79, 109, 119, 142, 508, 513, 536, 542, get off at Jeondang Cathedral (Hanok Village) bus stop

For More info about Jeonju Hanok Village, please click the link


cheers,
kadekarini

Talking about Korean food, the question that always running on my head is “How come those Koreans can be still skinny while the ingredients of all their foods they consume are made of carbo ?” The fact that there are few carbohydrate ingredients plates at Korean food is true, even more than one plate. Okay, let’s start talking about the Korean food that I cook. I arrived in K-Style Hub at 03.00 PM, the place itself is just next to Korea Tourism Organization office.

I was pretty surprised seeing the cooking class room as it look like a fancy kitchen in Master Chef show. One long table consisted of 2 Gas Stoves, 2 sinks, 2 free space for 2 groups. The chef’s table was located in front of us with the huge LCD as the background. There was one Ahjuma (a nickname for Korean old woman) who did a demo with Korean language of course, at the right side there was a young lady translated the language into English.

When Ahjuma started to cook, I thought I had to follow what she’s been doing, turns out she crossed her hands and said “STOP” which means all the participants didn’t allow to cook before the demo was done. We have to keep our eyes to the demo, and once it finished, we can do our own cooking process.

Long short story, it’s now my time to cook by myself !! So nervous AF as I am such a lazy daughter who never go to the kitchen to help my mom haha ! I just love to eat but I hate the process !

Based on the menu, I will cook Japchae (Korean noodle made of sweet potato) and shrimp vegetable pancakes. A big difference of Korean food comparing to Indonesian food is they use less seasoning, they don’t use MSG, they slightly use salt which sometimes make some of the foods don’t match my Indonesia tongue that used to be spoiled by tasty food.

Shrimp Vegetable Pancakes is the only one among others that suit my tongue, it was basically made of flour, vegies and shrimp that were mixed together, stir and being fried with sesame oil. The key to get the perfect pancake shape is when it was cooked 70 %, beat one egg and spread it in the center of the pancake and cook a few minutes over low heat.

The second menu is Japchae, this menu always show up in every Korean food. Japchae is a noodle made of sweet potato or Indonesian call it “ubi”, the noodle was being boiled and stir fried with vegetable and meat. And the last one was of course a bowl of rice. So, for these 3 kind of menus, all of them were made of carbo, rice is definitely carbo, Japchae which contained by noodle is also obviously carbo, and what about the last one ? The pancakes ? Absolutely flour is carbo ! Here it came the same question “How come those Korean people are still skinny while the ingredients of all their foods prepared of carbo ?”

But, what can compare the taste of the food that was cook by ourselves ? The chance to say that the food is insanely delicious now could be yours, even though you will be the only one who know the real taste. After finished eating, I left all the dishes at the table and walked away heading to the exit door, until some of the participants shouted at me and said “Kadek, you have to clean up your own dishes !” that was the most embarrassing moment that happened at my first day in South Korea.

That was like a big difference comparing Indonesia culture, I used to be spoiled by the cleaning services. Order the food, eating, and leave the dishes as knowing there would be staffs will clean  the tables. But here in Korea, it would never be happened. I needed time to getting used to the habit. Every time after eating, I had to bring the dishes to the trash bin that already provided and not supposed to leave them dirty and messy on the table.

For those who are interested, reservation have to be made at least 3 days prior to the visit, and lessons would be canceled if there are less than 10 people sign up for the program.

K-Style Hub
Website : K-Style Hub
Address : 40, Cheonggyecheon-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul
For more info : 1330 hotline +82-2-1330 (Korean, english, Japanese, chinese)
Open : 09.00 – 20.00

Price : 40.000 - 60.000 won (38 - 50 USD)

For more info about SOuth Korea Travel Destination visit the WEBSITE and FACEBOOK

cheers,

kadkarini