This past weekend I went to an island in the south of Korea, a little west of my city Changwon. It is called Namhae and also known as Treasure Island. It is the second largest island in South Korea after Jeju Island. I went with my friends from a hagwon and we paid for an inclusive tour targeted towards young people with Enjoy Korea. We'd previously gone on trips with them and really enjoyed ourselves. It's just easier when you live in a country where your first language isn't their first language... planning certain kinds of trips can be a little bit more tricky than it is at home.
So our weekend started with a bus trip to Namhae, Changwon is only about 2 hours away so we didn't leave until 10:30 which suited me perfectly. Since our friends were camping they had a ton of gear. We arrived at the pension after 12 and set up everything, then it was off to find a convenience store, this is when I got my first view of the beach. Our pension was really close to the beach and when we walked down you could see tents set up everywhere. Campsites are different in Korea than in Canada. There was no space between the sites, everyone just set up their tents next to each other, it looked crowded.
The beach was long and sandy, I think the sand must've been brought in because none of the other beaches in this area had sand like that. It was beautifully soft and wide so their was lots of room to relax above the tide line. We were in kind of a bay so it almost felt like you were on a lake since it curved around on both sides then there were some little islands out in the middle. There were tons of other foreigners around because another tour group was also staying at that beach, that and it was a long weekend.
On our first day we were going to the beef and garlic festival, yes, that's right, a beef and garlic festival.. Korea has festivals for almost everything. When we were driving to our pension/campsite we passed the festival and were impressed with the amount of garlic we saw. I hadn't been paying as much attention to the scenery as I could've been, but my friend informed me she'd been seeing garlic since they arrived on the island and then I started to notice it too. Field after field of garlic and their stalks laid out to dry in the hot spring sun. I guess it is garlic harvesting season in Korea, what better time to attend a beef and garlic festival!
The festival had a lot of garlic, like everywhere. There were garlic sculptures, sacks of garlic, black garlic (I believe fermented garlic), garlic for sale, garlic blow ups floating in a lake across the street, two garlic statues, one giant one and another carved out of stone. They take their garlic very seriously here apparently. We also lots of evidence of beef, but I honestly think they just added the beef onto the title to make it sound more appeal. I mean, who doesn't want to go to a beef and garlic festival? Right? Just a garlic festival, well I'm not so sure. I mean, I'd go, but I can see how it sounds less appealing.
As we walked around we could smell delicious food cooking everywhere and started to get hungry. We'd been told by our tour group that their would be cooking demonstrations in the main tent and they would be handing out samples so we headed that way. On our way there we saw one of the sources of the delicious smell. An out door bbq place. They had flat topped grills set up under tents and people standing around grilling meat. I told my friends we had to try that... little did I know what was to come...
The next interesting thing we saw was a group of performers all wearing white and bright blue dressy/trendy clothing. They were playing the traditional style korean drums (a variety of them) but with a bit more upbeat song. A few of the guys were sporting dreads or short, tight curls so I don't think they were full Korea or they were visiting (it's extremely rare to see Korean's with dreads or anything of that kind). They also had Capoeira performers which is a style of martial arts they do in Brazil... it's usually done to music. The guys performing looked Japanese, which makes sense because there is a large Japanese population in Brazil. I guessed that some of the performers were perhaps visiting Korea or touring-- anyway, it was very strange to see a demonstration of Brazilian martial arts at a Korean garlic festival... but still cool nonetheless, plus the drummers were really good, like really really good. Everyone was swaying along.
After we saw them we finally reached the main tent were the food was cooking...When we walked in we saw there were tables everywhere with grills in the middle. People were running around putting coals in the fire as people arrived. There were tons of people sitting around eating. We saw to the left of the tent there were vendors selling beef and sides for bbq. A couple of people in our group went over to check out the prices. We sat and watched the cooking, debating whether to go stand in the sample line. Finally, after much debate about the cost and how much to pay we had to large packs of beef and two trays of side dishes, beers and a bottle of soju (the popular korean booze of choice).
One thing to note about Korean beef is it's a lot more expensive than I'm used too. You cannot but a steak for under $10 as you might in Canada, maybe with beef from outside Korea, but Korean beef, no. Actually you probably can't find the standard cuts of beef we're used to in the west that easily anyway.
Basically, this bbq experience taught me why it's more expensive: It's really really freaking* delicious. I don't know if we just got really fresh beef, or it was more high quality than usual or what, but I can honestly say I have never had beef that good in Korea before. I think my friends can attest to this. It was literally just a thinly cut steak of beef with nothing on it that we tossed on the grill (because that's how you do things in Korea) and it was super tender, juicy, the fat that marbled our cut basically melted away, but added really nice flavour. It didn't have an old beefy taste or anything, it was so good. I'm getting hungry thinking about it. We mostly just ate it on it's own or with a little salt, and of course with some grilled garlic. There were also lettuce leaves to wrap it in (standard for korean bbq) and some onions in soy sauce and something else which is also common at bbq.
The bbq set up was also really neat. There were tons of tables with the grills in the middle set up around the tent. It was the main tent so it was larger than the ones we'd seen previously. There were little stools to sit on and people would bring you charcol and you could grab the grill top yourself. It wasn't a restaurant at all, it was literally a place to buy meat, grill it yourself and eat. There were people giving away sauces and of course garlic to go with the meat in the centre of the tent.
Then there were some people cooking. They were two or three foreign guys from our Enjoy Korea group. They made some mexican style beef (I forgot the name, but it's a fairly popular one) and empanada's which were amazing. The line took a little long so during our second trip three of us went up and we kept trading places so one or two of us could go back to our table and grab a chuck of beef. After we finished the first to packs of beef we grabbed a third (it was that good, guys, really!)
After eating we wandered around the festival a little bit, taking some pictures with the giant garlic statues... yes that was also a thing. Some how we stumbled upon what looked like a drag show? It was a guy dressed up in makeup and women's clothing singing songs that had a traditional / old-timey vibe to them. There were a bunch of ajama's and ajashee's watching (elderly folk) and they seemed really into it. The singer invited us to sit and listen when my friend went up to get a photo. It was really fun and relaxing after being in the noisy tent, although we couldn't understand the words the music was good.
Next we went back to the main tent because they were release balloons with LED lights in them. Personally I'm not a fan of these balloon release that they like to do at Korean festivals (so far I've seen it happen twice) it really isn't good for the environment and my west coast heart goes against it, but it did come with the festival and as they when in Korea do as the Korean's do... well maybe not, but you get the idea.
The balloon release was fun, despite what my heart said about it. After we released the balloons they also let a giant floating lantern go. It was a little bit scary, it didn't get very high up because the lantern caught on fire and fell back into the crowd. Luckily it fell pretty slowly and everyone just moved out of the way. I do admit I'm a little afraid of fire and I may have rushed off to the side when it started to fall....
The last part of the evening was more dancing, the drummers from earlier in the afternoon played on stage and sang some popular songs. I was really surprised everyone was sitting down listen, but then they got the drummers out again and people began dancing. Especially the ajama's (older ladies) they really know how to party over here haha.
When we headed back to the bus everyone was still pretty pumped up from the music, dancing and drinking so we decide we needed some music for the way back to the beach. Our tour leader couldn't get the music to work so one of the guys from my group offered to sing. Apparently he'd either drank enough to have no qualms about it, or he wasn't the nervous type. Anyway he got up there and belted out some songs, he got everyone singing and by the time we got back to the hostel we had music playing and half the bus dancing. It was one of those random, crazy things that happen with these kinds of trips when you have a bunch of like-minded young people together.
The very last part of the night was spent on the beach, hunkering down with one last drink before we headed to bed. The next day was going to be long with both a temple visit and walking around the rice terraces. So I'll save that day for post two because I just noticed how long this one's got. So Temple and Rice terraces coming soon! Promise.
So our weekend started with a bus trip to Namhae, Changwon is only about 2 hours away so we didn't leave until 10:30 which suited me perfectly. Since our friends were camping they had a ton of gear. We arrived at the pension after 12 and set up everything, then it was off to find a convenience store, this is when I got my first view of the beach. Our pension was really close to the beach and when we walked down you could see tents set up everywhere. Campsites are different in Korea than in Canada. There was no space between the sites, everyone just set up their tents next to each other, it looked crowded.
The beach was long and sandy, I think the sand must've been brought in because none of the other beaches in this area had sand like that. It was beautifully soft and wide so their was lots of room to relax above the tide line. We were in kind of a bay so it almost felt like you were on a lake since it curved around on both sides then there were some little islands out in the middle. There were tons of other foreigners around because another tour group was also staying at that beach, that and it was a long weekend.
On our first day we were going to the beef and garlic festival, yes, that's right, a beef and garlic festival.. Korea has festivals for almost everything. When we were driving to our pension/campsite we passed the festival and were impressed with the amount of garlic we saw. I hadn't been paying as much attention to the scenery as I could've been, but my friend informed me she'd been seeing garlic since they arrived on the island and then I started to notice it too. Field after field of garlic and their stalks laid out to dry in the hot spring sun. I guess it is garlic harvesting season in Korea, what better time to attend a beef and garlic festival!
The festival had a lot of garlic, like everywhere. There were garlic sculptures, sacks of garlic, black garlic (I believe fermented garlic), garlic for sale, garlic blow ups floating in a lake across the street, two garlic statues, one giant one and another carved out of stone. They take their garlic very seriously here apparently. We also lots of evidence of beef, but I honestly think they just added the beef onto the title to make it sound more appeal. I mean, who doesn't want to go to a beef and garlic festival? Right? Just a garlic festival, well I'm not so sure. I mean, I'd go, but I can see how it sounds less appealing.
As we walked around we could smell delicious food cooking everywhere and started to get hungry. We'd been told by our tour group that their would be cooking demonstrations in the main tent and they would be handing out samples so we headed that way. On our way there we saw one of the sources of the delicious smell. An out door bbq place. They had flat topped grills set up under tents and people standing around grilling meat. I told my friends we had to try that... little did I know what was to come...
The next interesting thing we saw was a group of performers all wearing white and bright blue dressy/trendy clothing. They were playing the traditional style korean drums (a variety of them) but with a bit more upbeat song. A few of the guys were sporting dreads or short, tight curls so I don't think they were full Korea or they were visiting (it's extremely rare to see Korean's with dreads or anything of that kind). They also had Capoeira performers which is a style of martial arts they do in Brazil... it's usually done to music. The guys performing looked Japanese, which makes sense because there is a large Japanese population in Brazil. I guessed that some of the performers were perhaps visiting Korea or touring-- anyway, it was very strange to see a demonstration of Brazilian martial arts at a Korean garlic festival... but still cool nonetheless, plus the drummers were really good, like really really good. Everyone was swaying along.
After we saw them we finally reached the main tent were the food was cooking...When we walked in we saw there were tables everywhere with grills in the middle. People were running around putting coals in the fire as people arrived. There were tons of people sitting around eating. We saw to the left of the tent there were vendors selling beef and sides for bbq. A couple of people in our group went over to check out the prices. We sat and watched the cooking, debating whether to go stand in the sample line. Finally, after much debate about the cost and how much to pay we had to large packs of beef and two trays of side dishes, beers and a bottle of soju (the popular korean booze of choice).
One thing to note about Korean beef is it's a lot more expensive than I'm used too. You cannot but a steak for under $10 as you might in Canada, maybe with beef from outside Korea, but Korean beef, no. Actually you probably can't find the standard cuts of beef we're used to in the west that easily anyway.
Basically, this bbq experience taught me why it's more expensive: It's really really freaking* delicious. I don't know if we just got really fresh beef, or it was more high quality than usual or what, but I can honestly say I have never had beef that good in Korea before. I think my friends can attest to this. It was literally just a thinly cut steak of beef with nothing on it that we tossed on the grill (because that's how you do things in Korea) and it was super tender, juicy, the fat that marbled our cut basically melted away, but added really nice flavour. It didn't have an old beefy taste or anything, it was so good. I'm getting hungry thinking about it. We mostly just ate it on it's own or with a little salt, and of course with some grilled garlic. There were also lettuce leaves to wrap it in (standard for korean bbq) and some onions in soy sauce and something else which is also common at bbq.
The bbq set up was also really neat. There were tons of tables with the grills in the middle set up around the tent. It was the main tent so it was larger than the ones we'd seen previously. There were little stools to sit on and people would bring you charcol and you could grab the grill top yourself. It wasn't a restaurant at all, it was literally a place to buy meat, grill it yourself and eat. There were people giving away sauces and of course garlic to go with the meat in the centre of the tent.
Then there were some people cooking. They were two or three foreign guys from our Enjoy Korea group. They made some mexican style beef (I forgot the name, but it's a fairly popular one) and empanada's which were amazing. The line took a little long so during our second trip three of us went up and we kept trading places so one or two of us could go back to our table and grab a chuck of beef. After we finished the first to packs of beef we grabbed a third (it was that good, guys, really!)
After eating we wandered around the festival a little bit, taking some pictures with the giant garlic statues... yes that was also a thing. Some how we stumbled upon what looked like a drag show? It was a guy dressed up in makeup and women's clothing singing songs that had a traditional / old-timey vibe to them. There were a bunch of ajama's and ajashee's watching (elderly folk) and they seemed really into it. The singer invited us to sit and listen when my friend went up to get a photo. It was really fun and relaxing after being in the noisy tent, although we couldn't understand the words the music was good.
Next we went back to the main tent because they were release balloons with LED lights in them. Personally I'm not a fan of these balloon release that they like to do at Korean festivals (so far I've seen it happen twice) it really isn't good for the environment and my west coast heart goes against it, but it did come with the festival and as they when in Korea do as the Korean's do... well maybe not, but you get the idea.
The balloon release was fun, despite what my heart said about it. After we released the balloons they also let a giant floating lantern go. It was a little bit scary, it didn't get very high up because the lantern caught on fire and fell back into the crowd. Luckily it fell pretty slowly and everyone just moved out of the way. I do admit I'm a little afraid of fire and I may have rushed off to the side when it started to fall....
The last part of the evening was more dancing, the drummers from earlier in the afternoon played on stage and sang some popular songs. I was really surprised everyone was sitting down listen, but then they got the drummers out again and people began dancing. Especially the ajama's (older ladies) they really know how to party over here haha.
When we headed back to the bus everyone was still pretty pumped up from the music, dancing and drinking so we decide we needed some music for the way back to the beach. Our tour leader couldn't get the music to work so one of the guys from my group offered to sing. Apparently he'd either drank enough to have no qualms about it, or he wasn't the nervous type. Anyway he got up there and belted out some songs, he got everyone singing and by the time we got back to the hostel we had music playing and half the bus dancing. It was one of those random, crazy things that happen with these kinds of trips when you have a bunch of like-minded young people together.
The very last part of the night was spent on the beach, hunkering down with one last drink before we headed to bed. The next day was going to be long with both a temple visit and walking around the rice terraces. So I'll save that day for post two because I just noticed how long this one's got. So Temple and Rice terraces coming soon! Promise.
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