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Published: June 13th 2007
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Bibimbap
What's not to be happy about? Ahhh, to wake up in a Yeogwan...
After a fantastic night's sleep, we had the luxury of being able to wake up and take a bath! So different from the usual 3 day hygiene drought we've become so accustomed to
Last night, as we were finishing off our pizza, we met a bunch of Korean folk who'd just finished off their shift at a rafting stall, and, after chatting a while they suggested we join them first thing in the morning for a river raft by their strongest driver.
So, Good and clean and fresh (tra la la la) we headed off down to the river that runs through Muju. The slow cruise in the middle of the mirror water with the unusually fresh mountain air in our faces, early in the morning, was a fantastic way to start the day.
We headed off from the rafts up to the main market for one last look around and to maybe get some of the stuff we'd admired on Monday.
The first stall revisited was the stall selling items made from clay. We've been looking out for a piggy-bank-friendly traditional Korean tea set for a while now (to
Our yeogwan bathroom
The only bad thing about it, according to Darrell, are the pink slip-ons you need to wear. take home with us after our stay in South Korea -the tea here is
spectacular!, all it needs is a pot...) and
HAPPY DAYS the potter had kept the last one for us! A few necklaces and incense burners later, we were ready to start negotiating the price.
As we were gathering our loot to mosey on to the next stall, another lady working at the pottery stall (busy with a lump of clay on her potter's wheel) called us over to have a go at some pottery making! She pulled up an extra chair, sat me (Cath) down and showed me how to put my hands on the clay. With her hands on the one side, and mine on the other, we were off! She was amazing! Every time I thought, "Woooahh... this is it, it's going to wobble off the wheel and fly into someone's eyeball!" she'd get everything under control again! ...and
SURPRISE i made a pot! YAY! I still feel silly at how proud I am of my pot, I wrote my name in it and everything!
After picking up a few more odds and ends from the other stalls, and decided it was
And we're off!
Nothing like an early morning raft on a glassy river to get the day started that time again (mostly because we had literally spent
all the money in
both our wallets), and headed off to the bus terminal.
The posters with all the bus times showed that the bus for Seoul would only be leaving about 3 later, so we decided to get a bus to Jeonju instead. Jeonju is famous for being the origin of both the Joseon Dynmasty and that fantastic all-purpose food,
bibimbap.
After another 1.5hrs on a comfortable air-conditioned bus, we were in the provincial capital, and quickly found directions to the best bibimbap restaurant in town. When we got there we found that it cost $8 per person. Steep considering we've had it for $3 at small cafes. But hey, we're in the home of Bibimbap, eating at the best restaurant. This has got to be the place to come if you're looking for the best bowl of bibimbap in the world. We've travelled so far out of our way, so "When in Rome...". We coughed up the cash and sat down by the window to salivate in anticipation.
Man, it did not dissappoint. Served with about 15 side dishes, including the fantastic eggy pot-omelette thing, came
In the quiet of the morning
As 10am is practically the crack of dawn in Korea, the festival behind us was still sleeping. Try and see the huge balloons used to decorate the festival! the yummiest bowl of
dolsotbibimbap we've had. Even though we'd hardly been running on coffee and biscuits all day, we were uncable to clean up the table. We washed it all down with a black bean latte (interesting) and hopped into another taxi to get back to the bus station.
Full, satisfied, and well relaxed we began the 5 hours of busses, subways and more busses that would take us back to Seoul and then back to English Village.
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Stephen Walker
non-member comment
Where did you go?
Was it the place next to the pet store, near CBNU's new gate (shin jeong mun), in Keumamdong? My sense is that that place is considered to be the very best pibimbap. Dolsotpibimbap there is 10,000 won, and they have a 9,000 won pibimbap. Both are fantastic, but I prefer the dolsot. You can get 3000 won pibimbap in Jeonju (elsewhere!), but the quality is inferior. If I don't want to spend that much, I make my own, but it takes a good deal of effort to separately prepare everything to be ready at the right time. It really gives you an appreciation for what it takes to prepare all those side dishes, etc.