This day would be seeing a lot of what makes Jeonju into a destination that does have some distinct tourism value. From the large Hanok Village (that is admittedly its main draw), to bibimbap,a dish that it is widely known for. to the lush mountains and forests that surround it. Jeonju does have a lot to offer.
The day started with a quick pastry and coffee from the bakery next to my AirBNB, a bakery with a phenomenal smell. From there I took a cab down to the heart of the city, one edge of the Hanok Village. Hanok means "home" roughly, and this large area is built with traditional architecture, cobble stone streets and largely represents a facsimile of what Korea looked like, but with modern trappings. The stores, restaurants, cafes, that make up the village are all bordering on trendy. I plan to get lost in the village matrix later in the day, but I did stop in for a coffee in a large cafe with again impeccable decor (truly, Korea has the best coffee-shops of any place I've been to). The first stop though was kind of the entry point into the Hanok Village.
The Jeonju Hyanggyo is a fairly mid-size temple complex built to currently house a Confucian-based school. I arrived as people there were preparing the grounds and decorating it for the upcoming Chuseok festival, but they didn't me mind just aimlessly walking around. It is built in a corner of Jeonju that borders the rivers and a large hill (the Eastern Hill), so the setting was very tranquil. From there I walked through the Hanok Village - making the aforementioned cafe stop, on the way to the Jeonju's primary hitorical tourist attraction, which was basically a supersized version of the Jeonju Hyanggyo.
Historically Jeonju was a major city in the Joseon Dynasty, that ruled Korea from the late 1300's through to the Japan takeover in the late 1800s. Gyeonggijeon in the center of the city - across the street from teh cathedral - was built as a shrine in 1410 (it has since been destroyed and rebuilt 2-3 times) at the start of the Joseon dynasty, and is dedicated to Yi Seong-gye, the first emperor of the Joseon, and in many ways the father of the country.
The complex has a series of temple structures building to a shrine about 3-4 in which houses a replica of the King's Portrait of Yi Seong-Gye (the real one is housed in an archives in Seoul). The place is built to look like it was in the old days, with teh same paint colors and design of all Royal buildings. To one side is a recreation of the 'annex' which is a series of smaller buildings that were living quarters, kitchens, churches, of the emperor's people in those days. To its other side is a building that gives a quick explanation of the archival process taken to keep safe the Joseon Archives - painstaking bookeeping records, war records and things that are basically diaries, of all 600 years of Joseon rule.
The last part of the complex is a building in the back called the Royal Portrait Gallery, which si what it says, housing protraits of six emperors. It is clear to mention that the Joseon had many more emperors - about 30 in total - and portraits of the others were lost in various fires, and for whatever reason chosen not to be recreated. Because of that, the gallery is a bit of a half measure, but it is small, indoors and a nice capstone to this shrine to the Joseon Dynasty - a far more important part of the culture of Korea than I realized.
After the tour of shrine, which included a 30-person guided tour in English which was a nice touch, I made the trek to another shrine of Jeonju: one of its noted Bibimbap houses. Jeonju is noted for bibimbap, something that is credible enough that Unesco has called Jeonju a city of gastronomy worldwide largely for its excellence and history of bibimbap. The most famous place is Hangkook Jib - which I may go to tomorrow, but from my research, the place known as the best is called Jungang Hoegwan, a fairly nameless place on a side-street. It was well worth it.
I was lucky to get a table, arriving around 12:30. By the time I left at 1:20 or so, there was a 10+ person line outside, and a stack of stools for further people in the queue to use. The first thing I received was like 10 small plates, half with various kimchi, half with desert type small bites, one things of glass noodles and anotehr thing of a baked fish. This came with no real explanation, unsure if thise was stuff to mix into the bibimbap bowl that would come, so I more or less just waited. In about ten more minutes the bown of bibimbap fixings, a pot of just cooked rice, and a soup, were brought as well. For what was about $11, this was a ludicrous amount of food, but it was all excellent.
The bibimbap itself was "mixed" by me before I guess a staff member took pity on me and took over and whipped it up beautifully in two minutes and gave it back at just the right amount of homogeniety. In the end, I have to say that the bibimbap, plus the literally 12 small plates, was an incredible meal. I'm definitely hopping back to one of the other bibimbap joints for lunch tomorrow as well. When in Jeonju, as they say.
From there, I took a taxi (love the app) to go on a visit 40-minutes outside central Jeonju to the Wibongsa temple complex, which sits in the foot of the Wibongsa state park. The drive out was through series of luscious greenery, with the odd coffee shop (still fancy) as the break between ravines and woods and hills. The place is fairly isolated, and while there is a bus that takes you from there back to Jeonju, it was hard to get any reputable information on how frequently this bus ran. I pivoted to using Google Translate to communicate to the taxi driver that I would pay 40,00 won (basically double my fare coming) if he were to wait an hour and drive me back. Somehow we broke through the language barrier, and I was able to explore without a fear of how I would make it back.
The Wibongsa Temple is beautiful. The temples themselves are less ornate than those in say Vietnam, but on the whole they are sturdy, and in this setting fit in so well with the large rolling mountain behind it. The temple complex was laid out in a very open setting, taking good advantage of the large space it has, with almost Japanese-like trees, great greenery and even a few monks that were doing laundry (random, but worth a comment). From there, the other site nearby is the Wibongsa Waterfall, a 90-foot waterfall into a ravine nearby. I walked the 10-15 min or so from the temple to a lookout, deciding not to do the further 30-minute walk to the actual waterfall. The view, with a pretty sizable waterfall falling into a deep nothingness of green forest, was quite beautiful in reality.
The gambit with the taxi driver worked, and after a while I w2asn on my way back to the city, to do what I've somehow avoided doing until this point, which is just walk around the Hanok Village. I did get some lubrication first, going to the other outpost of Nomadic Brewing, this being a combination indoor/outdoor spot in Hanok Village. I wanted to meet the guy behind this place but alas I did not this day either. The beer was good, even convincing me to grab four cans to take home, the first purchase of my trip.
The Hanok Village extends in a few directions. The Nomadic Brewery outpost is on one of the two main "roads" (quotes being this is basically a pedestrian area with the odd car to disrupt the flow. The road with the brewery is the more traditional one, with most of the buildings being "home-stays" which are people essentially renting out their houses full time for a true local feel. If not that was a few very expensive art shops and cafes. The other main street was far more commercial but still really nicely done. Still a lot of traditional architecture, and a stream running right next to the sidewalk for the full 1km length, and more commercial shops, restuarants, cafes and the rest on the road. This part was humming a bit, and I definitely spotted more tourists (i.e. white-people) here than in the rest of Jeonju combined. Not that it was a bad thing. Jeonju does hardocre tourism well.
For dinner I ambled over a couple blocks away from the Hanok village to what was a throbbing scene of restaurants, bars, etc., and a generally young crowd. A local who spoke English told me tomorrow is a holdiay (in anticipation of Chuseok - the main Holiday - on Saturday) so it is a bit more crowded than normal, but not so much so. I chose a korean bbq spot for dinner, that had about a 30 min wait but nothing too difficult. The experience of the meal itself was a blast.
Unlike most korean bbq places, whether in USA or Korea, this one serves only pork - either pork belly or pork ribs, that the servers manage and grill for you on a hot-stone like griddle rather than an open flame. Whatever the particularities or the process, the results were fantastic, little scissor-cut strips of pork belly grilled well and then given multiple things to dip in or plop on, like wasabi, mustard, salt, gochujang, a red bean paste, etc. Like all great Korean places, it still had its 8-or-so plates of kimchi and litle bites. Overall, Mung-Yoko (the name of the place) was well worht the wait.
For my last night in Jeonju, I ventured a bit further away, heading out to an area near the University, that was truly hopping. It was what you picture when you think of ngith in Korea or Japan - loud music, bright signs, korean bbq places and bars everywhere. It was a bit disarming, but remained fully enticing. My first stop was an underground bar serving a truly giant list of whiskeys and cocktails made with said whiskeys. It had the decor of a turkish hooka lounge It required you to take off your shoes and wear slippers. It was just a strange place, but it was great. I had a few rounds of a Korean whiskey generously poured (granted, generously priced - Korea is a fairly expensive place when it comes to drinks that are not soju). What was more interesting to me really is that when I left, about 75% of the patrons were women, including groups of 2-3 women. Nothing wrong with that of course - if anything I found it pretty cool that this place is mainly attracting folks that generally wouldn't go to this type of establishment in the US.
My final stop was at Pub Grizzly, which is more liek the normal places that make this college adjacent area humming. It was a college-type bar that could easily have situated itself in any US city. It was mostly locals, but had about 10 westerners, who I found out over tiem were exchange students (Korea just started letting exchange students in about two weeks ago) which was kind of cool. But then again I'm 10+ years older than these folks and largely found them way too noisy. I'm old is what I'm saying - or at least I want to be prepared for this. Jeonju was suppsoed to be the relatively quiet nights ahead of what is to come in Seoul... It may not have ended so, but it was still cool to see this little slice of Jeonju.
