Korean Cultural Tour - (Korea) Day 234

At the Korean Folk Village with our tour guide

This morning I had no work call, instead I went on a Korean Cultural Tour. We met up at 0830 at the shoppette next to my office and all boarded a bus that headed to a traditional Korean folk village. The trip took a little over an hour, so I slept for a good part of it. When we arrived at the village, we were given a short tour of some of the main places and then we were turned loose for an hour to explore whatever we wanted. The village was pretty interesting, it gives you insight into how Koreans lived during the Joseon Dynasty period.

I stumbled upon a traditional Korean folk performance soon after we were turned loose to wander about. I sat and watched the performance and then shortly afterward nearby there was another performance, only this one was a tightrope performance. It was pretty impressive, not only because it was on a tightrope, but because the performer had to be in his late 50's or early 60's! After the show I wandered around the village checking out the different sights with a guy I met on the tour.

We had lunch at the village as a group. It was similar to beef & leaf that I've had before, but instead of grilling the beef, it was cooked in a pan with some sort of sauce at our table. It was pretty good, and it was free! Once everyone was done, we boarded the bus and headed to the Chungdong Theatre. Here we watched "Miso" an "Original Korean Musical". I was wondering if I was going to care for this much because I had no idea what to expect. It turns out that it was pretty good. Before it started it had some background music playing and on a screen it told the story of what we were about to see (in Korean, English - and I'm guess Japanese and Chinese). When the show started there was no talking, just a bunch of folks running around and acting to instrumental music. The stage was great and the costumes were excellent. Because there was no talking everyone could pretty much understand what was going on.

After the show we headed back to the post and the tour was over. I had a fun time. I'm glad there are things like this offered to us that don't cost any money. I was surprised that I was the only one in my office that requested to go…of course I request to go on everything because I want to take advantage of all the opportunities I can while I'm here.

Once back I headed to the barber to get my hair cut and then ate dinner at the food court. After that I took a nap in my room before getting up and surfing the web a bit before watching a TV show and doing just one SkillPort. I'm going on leave tomorrow, so this will be the last I post for probably two weeks!!!!!!

Me playing dress up at the Chungdong Theatre before the show