Hahoe Folk Village

This weekend we took a trip to a traditional folk village in a city about 3 hours north of us. Apparently when the Queen came to visit Korea she asked to go to the most 'Korean' place in Korea and she was taken to Hahoe folk village, this fact obviously made Hahoe all the more inticing. So we got up early and took a series of buses, the main one being massively over heated! We were on the bus in t shirts sweating whilst the Koreans were happily snoozing in their big coats. When we arrived we had a bit of trouble trying to find the bus stop for the folk village. Luckily whilst we were wondering around with our little map, a Korean man who spoke near perfect English lent us a hand and was in fact heading to the village himself. When we got to the the village we were just in time to see a traditional mask performance something which Hahoe is famous for. We didn't really catch the gist of the story but it was cool seeing the actors prance around in their masks. During the performance we were approached by a man with a huge camera who wanted to take pictures of us watching the show, and what was stranger he wanted to take a photo of Nina taking a photo of the performance. After several awkward minutes of feeling like we were in a photo shoot, he produced his card revealing that he was a photographer. He liked taking natural pictures, but on viewing the pictures they were a little bit too natural as Ed looked rather gormless and Nina was laughing with a huge double chin. He said he could e mail the photos to us but we don't think we'll get in touch. Here are some photos from the mask performance:

The weather was lovely and sunny so we were able to wonder around the Folk village. Firstly we looked around a commemorative exhibition which celebrated the Queen's visit. It was quite strange seeing huge pictures of the Queen and looking at artefacts such as 'the chair the Queen sat on' and 'the plate the Queen ate off'. Afterwards we looked around the village which was built about five hundred years ago and people still live there by the same traditions. It was built by the Prime minister who was in office during the invasion of Japan in 1592 so as you can imagine he is regarded as a national hero in Korea. Here are some photos of the village:

 It's a small village surrounded by a river and mountains which makes for a very picturesque view. We were able to take a very small and overpriced ferry/boat across the river to a cliff which you can climb for a view of the village. Here are some pictures of the view:

In other news, we have joined the gym in order to work on our summer beach bods. The gym is only two minutes away and you are provided with your own work out kit/uniform:: boys in blue, girls in pink. The changing room etiquette is quite different too, let's just say people aren't shy. Next week we are also moving apartment about 1 minute down the road to a bigger place. So we shall put up some photos of our new pad next weekend.