There are 7 slow cities in South Korea and 4 of them are in South Jeolla Province. These cities work hard at staying true to their culture and roots by doing things the hard way. They're small cities resisting globalization.
This weekend I took my second trip to this "slow city" in South Jeolla Province. I made the trip, which was about 70km from Gwangju. We made our way on a Sunday afternoon to this "slow city". We made our way to a local swimming hole. I call it a local swimming hole because it's actually very small and only deep in certain places.
The swimming hole is right near the Slow City tourism office. We arrived at about 4 o'clock and there were still plenty of people there. We found a spot on the rocky beach and jumped right in. The hole is actually part of a small river. The river is surrounded by trees on one side and a rocky beach on the other. It's a very beautiful and refreshing river surrounded by Korean mountains. The best thing is that it's not for tourists. It's just a local beach where you go, have a picnic, a few beers and some soju. There are a lot of families swimming and most people are very kind and interested in the strange foreigner. It's not uncommon to have them float up to you to try their English because they haven't seen many foreigners.
After an afternoon of swimming we drove about 30 minutes to one of my friend's parents house. It's a beautiful rural area full of rice paddies, vegetable fields, and COWS! It was my first time seeing Korean cows. The cows here are the Hanwoo breed. It's my first time seeing this kind of cattle and I'm from a small town where there are more cows than people. I was happy to see that farming here in Korea is very similar to back home. The farmers house is a little more messy than most and dirt isn't really that dirty. It's just like back home. They're also very friendly and very community oriented people.
Anyways, we arrived at the house to find that we would be eating beef for dinner. I was in bliss. In Korea, beef is extremely expensive so we don't eat it very often and we eat it in small amounts. However, we enjoyed copious amounts of grilled beef. We also had side dishes provided by Charles' mom.
After dinner, we went to Charles' home to wash up and relax. They had just built a new home and it was absolutely beautiful. It was a beautiful stone house with a completely wooden interior. It had a chandelier in the living room along with a HD big screen TV with quality I had yet to seen. There were 3 bedrooms and a Korean style sleeping room upstairs. They also have an older traditional Korean style house behind their new house and next to the barns where grandmother lives.
We spent the night playing punishment games and taking a walk along the river and beach. While on the beach, even though it was 12am, there were tons of people. There was a family fishing, friends drinking, couples walking, and even some sleeping in the pagodas. We had a beer and played basketball and some other sporty games. After a while we made our way home and settled down for the night in the big Korean room. There were 10 of us all sleeping on the floor. It was just like those shows on TV.
In the morning we had a traditional Korean breakfast consiting of rice, seawead soup, and a bunch of side dishes. It was fantastic. After lazing about for a while watching TV and chatting with the family we made our way back to Gwangju. On the drive home we saw some of the green tea fields that Boseong is famous for. It looked very pretty. The tea fields are grown on the steep side of a mountain in lines. It's the only break in the forests that cover all the mountains here.
I think that the next trip will have to be to Boseong to visit the green tea fields so I can spend a little more time admiring the sights. Boseong is also near the ocean so it can be a beach trip as well.
Overall, the trip was a success and I highly recommend this trip as a nice escape from the summer heat and a break from the crowded and salty beaches in the south.
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