전주한옥마을

Today was the “Field Trip” day of orientation.

(Yes it was actually called a field trip. We are all adults with at least a bachelor’s degree, and we now have a curfew. Everyone feels like they’re at summer camp. And are kind of ready to leave.)

That’s a bit harsh I suppose. We have all really enjoyed the lectures and information that we’ve been given. But it was a little bit funny today to go on a field trip and follow our homeroom teacher around who was holding up a big sign with our group names.

Anyway I’ve lost my point.

Today we went to Jeonju Hanok Village. Hanok are the traditional style Korean houses and Jeonju is a city about an hour and 15 minutes away from our orientation venue. It is famous for bibimbap which is a rice dish with lots of different brightly colored vegetables on top. When it’s arranged correctly, it kind of looks like a flower.

And so for the first part of our trip today, we got to make bibimbap!

 

 

They gave us a little cooking demonstration at first and then we were let loose to attempt to emulate it. I can’t say that it ended up looking exactly the same, but it sure tasted good!

 

 

 

If I ever felt weird about eating raw egg I don’t any more. The instructor told us that in this dish the raw egg helps everything mix together easier and gives it a more rich flavor.

Then we went to Gyeonggijeon Shrine.

 

 

 

 

 

After we walked through the shrine we were given a little bit of free time to go explore. I was mostly on the lookout for street food.

We ended up finding a hotteok place that was making them fresh from the oven!

 

 

 

 

After that we mostly just walked around and tried not to bump in the roughly 1 million people who were also fighting the lines for some yummy street food. Tons of people were wearing Hanbok, the traditional Korean clothes so it made for some very lovely people watching. The streets were very small and the buildings no more than about 3 floors, so it kept a traditional feeling.

 

 

 

 

 

We had been anticipating really cold weather for the trip but it ended up being a really lovely, sunny day! Jeonju is definitely worth checking out if you’re ever in the area.

Thanks for reading!