Fall and the Harvest Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Jeonju. Traveling with my son and Seoah. Making rice wine. The bus ride. The rest stop area with so much on offer. Murdoch wiggling when we finally, finally got home. Korean traditional housing. Warm floors, central courtyard, blue tiled roof. Seoah and her 108 bows. Korean pears and apples. Land not covered with buildings covered with crops. Density.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Memories

One brief shining: Streets of traditional Korean houses, hanok, now housing fortune tellers, coffee shops, souvenir dealers, craftspeople bustled with tourists and folks wearing hanbok, the traditional Korean clothing, women strolling with their hoop-skirts much like Southern belles at a fashion soreé while children ran down a water course that followed one of the streets and jugglers kept wooden discs in the air on small spindly poles.

Not quite what we expected. But fun anyhow. Not a Korean Williamsburg. More like a Korean fair with lots of kids laughing and eating ridiculous food on sticks. The occasional street performance by roaming jugglers and small bands. An air of festivity.

This area filled with over 700 traditional Korean homes has cobblestone streets which you can see in the picture above. Hard to walk on for me. Must have been a charming place to live in the early 20th century when it was built. Seoah says her parent’s original home was just like these. The home before the one Kate and I visited in 2016. Many of the houses in Okgwa are hanok homes still.

These homes featured walled courtyards, heated floors, the traditional tiled roof. Some of the best preserved have wonderful wooden doors with iron hinges, door pulls and decorative features.

Jeonju has a special place in Korean history. It is the ancestral home of the Yi family, the family of the first King of the Joseon dynasty. It also has a reputation as a city of the arts and culture. The hanok village that we visited lies inside the now more modern and much larger city.

The Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945 has cast a pall over contemporary Koreans. Got another taste of that in the first part of our trip. We made Korean rice wine.

Making the wine itself was not hard. Put the rice in the bowl. Cover with yeast. Knead. A while later, pour in pristine water. Knead some more. Pour result into a covered jar. Take  home, put in a shaded spot. Wait ten days.

The hard part lay in the narration of why we were doing this. During the occupation Japan imposed a prohibition on any liquor made in the home. Presumably to control restless, drunken resistance.

The old recipes, a part of folk culture, gradually withered away until no one had them anymore. Now the owner of this little DIY project has dedicated himself to seeing that his fellow Koreans never again lose their birthright. At least as it pertains to the making of rice wine.

The odd part for my son, Seoah, and me was that none of us drink. We brought ours home anyhow. My son will give it away to his squad when it’s ready.

Fall and the Harvest Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Tom and the lag. The Woolly Christmas at Nicollet Island Inn. Jeonju, our destination this morning. A hanok village. Feeling better. Seoah and my son. Getting ready. A cooler, but still warm day ahead. Songtan in the early morning. Sleepy yet never fully asleep. A good night’s rest. Buses. Museli. Milk. Cold Water.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Sunseen. Sununseen.

One brief shining: Up early for a view of old Korea reminds me of the other times like getting up with Mom to catch the Greyhound to the State Fair like going to work on a busy day like rushing through the house to get on the road to the airport for a flight to Maui like awakening in Rome to the sound of buses and cars, the smell of dark coffee and croissants, like any time expectation led the way like a little boy creeping down the stairs on Christmas morning.

Energy level better but far from robust. A two hour bus ride to Jeonju and back. Time to sleep a bit. Plan to stop when I need to and rest. Excited to see this Slow City. Love the idea of a slow city, slow food. Especially when the idea merges with the historic and the culturally significant.

My son compared Jeonju to Williamsburg. Maybe. Not really sure. Williamsburg was the birth place of William Schmidt. No, wait. That was Door County. Williamsburg and its colonial reenactors make for a quick dive back to the beginnings of our nation. The sights and sounds and smells, even the dialects. If that’s what we get in Jeonju, I’ll be pleased.

The touristy side of this trip has taken a back seat to health. Mine. That’s ok. I’m with family and in an everyday part of Korea that has given me ample opportunity to participate in and observe Korea as a home. The medical clinics. The neighborhood restaurants. The school kids coming home in their uniforms around 4 pm. The masked ladies ambling their way on a daily walk. The Korean seniors exercising on the Mountain behind the apartments. That kid on Thursday riding his bicycle through a pouring rain. Happy. The construction workers on site at the Peyongaetk City project in their blue vests and hard hats.

Some days I vacationed. Reading. A lot. A couple of days during the cold I never got out of the apartment. This room I have is at the other end of the apartment from the kitchen, the living room, and the master bedroom. I have my own bathroom, a desk, books, and the computer on which I’m working right now. We can go about our mutual introverted lives intersecting for meals, the occasional jaunt out like today.

Realized a month or so ago that I tend to privilege reading above all other activities. Obvious you might say. But it wasn’t to me. If I have spare moments, I read. If I’m reading and other matters call to me, I often don’t pick up the phone. I’ve done that over the last week again. Healing and reading. A good combo for this guy.