Yesterday, I went with Kelly, her family, and her friend from New Zealand to the Korean Traditional Folk Village, in Yongin city. It was about a 20 minute drive away, and it was amazing. It showed all the aspects of traditional life, all in a very convincing natural setting. Pictured here are a bunch of overturned kim-chi pots that we saw there. Kim-chi was traditionally made in these pots and sometimes is still made in these pots today.  

A paper-mache display of a traditional Korean folktale about the good brother and the bad brother... I only got the synopsis from Kelly, but it sounded interesting. You'll see these guys again later... 

A traditional blacksmith's workshop.  

Thatched-roof shelters for the crops. 

A house's medicinal room, filled with hundreds of boxes for storing various medicinal ingredients.  

Pictured here is a memorial to a good wife.  

Here I am, in front of the memorial.  

A 99-room living area. In actualility, I don't think there were 99 rooms. There probably weren't even 30 rooms, but oh well. 

At the entrance to one of the living houses / compounds, there was this image. I thought it was cool. 

The storehouse area of a living compound.  

A traditional-looking worker, using not-so-traditional equipment to spray the crops of veggies in the folk village. 

These are tobacco plants. 

Here, at the Folk village, you can see one of the houses, done in traditional style.  

The first perfomanace of the day was a group of traditional dancers and drum players doing the Korean Farmer's dance. There were three small gong players, one big gong player, and about 10 drum players, not to mention 5 dancers. The sound was really really hynotizing, and it was like the people ceased to be people, and more supernatural, especially when they danced. 

Pictured here, you can see how some of the dancers whirled white ribbons from their hats. It was really cool to watch, especially when they did their leaping spins. 

After the rest of the performance was almost done, one final dancer came out with a HUGE ribbon and did amazing tricks with it. If you're interested, e-mail me, and I will send you a movie file taken with my camera of the dances. 

Another one of the presentations at the Folk Village was these girls, who were doing a see-saw performance. They would alternate at vaulting each other into the air and doing tricks. Here, they are whirling ribbons while doing gymnastic-like moves. It was awesome. 

Here, a tightrope walker climbs up to where he did the rest of his show. It was pretty good. 

Here, a giant tree was adorned with long sashes of cloth, denoting that it was a sacred place, or somewhere that spirits or fairies inhabited. There were many places like this usually at the entrance to old villages, and people would stop to pray. When they did, they would either tie a white piece of paper onto a rope-covered rock, or form a prayer stone pile, adding their prayer (or stone) to the pack. 

One of the performances at the Korean Folk Village was a traditional Korean wedding. It was cool. Lots of bowing and drinking tea involved... 

He is the groom on a donkey, as part of the wedding procession. :-) 

Part of the wedding procession. The bride was inside the Ka (my memory is poor, but I think that's what Kelly said this was called).  

There was a magician putting on a show in the Korean Folk Village. Naturally, I was fascinated. He did a really impressive (probably the most impressive I've seen) linking rings routine. Great stuff! 

A view of the lake in the middle of the Village. 

A palatial palace. Only the king of an area was allowed to own a house with 100 rooms or more, so most houses had only up to 99... sheesh... who can live with only 99 rooms?