A Trip with Rural20: Chansaem Village and Dueokhaengbokdeurim Village

President Council for Nation Branding as the implementaion of Rural20 project gave us an opportunity to visit 2 of the villages in Korea which are Chansaem Village in Daejeon and Duekhaengbokdeurim Village in Wanju. Before going the trip story, let's get to know what Rural20 is. The Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries of Korea  made this project and they chose 20 rural villages to let people experience their scenes and tradition. They categorized them into 4 different themes which are experience, nature, tradition, and wellbeing. If you go to their website, you will get many information regarding this project.
Our first stop was at Chansaem Village and it is categorized under wellbeing theme. It was a 2 hour trip by bus from Seoul and it is located in Daejeon. It was not like a village that I was expected. I think the village is built only for the experience purpose. I do not know but regardless it was a really nice place. They have fresh air, really nice paddy rice field view, hills, and really good food. As soon as we arrived, we directly went to an experience house to make by ourselves our dinner: Bibimpab!

It was not as simple as I had always thought. You have to put certain amount of spices to the ingredients. I used to think that Bibimbap is only rice with variation of vegetables. Anyway, we did it! And the taste was awesome!
The next activity was to harvest sweet potato. We had to go to a hill but instead of walking, we took a ride by a truck. Pretty awesome. I saw people sitting on the truck many times when I was in Indonesia, I had never thought I would the one who was doing it. It was pretty thrilling and fun, though.
We actually also learnt about how the farmers plant the sweet potato and how it is different from potato. There is also certain way to harvest it, so that we will not slice the sweet potato with the tool. It was a little bit frustrating because while everybody was happy getting really big sweet tomatoes I could not even find many small ones. But, we could take our potato home!

Happy with our sweet potatoes, we went down to get some rice. At a small field of rice, we got two handful of  rice stalk(?) and then by using a very traditional instrument, we separate the rice from its stalk. Not that difficult. But I wonder if you do it for the whole field, must be a really hard job.

We then took our bus again to have some experience in making Korean paper which is called HanJi (한지). I actually have witnessed the making of HanJi when I was visiting Jeonju and it was similar thing. Therefore I was not really surprised of what was going on. The fun thing was that I could make my own paper.

They actually explain the whole thing in detail, but I did not really understand. I think the process goes like this: they take the wood which is called deoknamu, then they reap it, clean it and take the white part of it, boil it, mix with with the glue, shape it by using some big instrument, and dry it. Korean paper is really famous for its quality and how it is made. There are many crafts made by Korean paper. I have once decorated a paper fan made of Korean paper when I was in Jeonju. It really has a very good quality.

With an empty stomach, we continued our trip to our accommodation in Wanju which was actually also the place we would have our next day activities. It is called Dueokhaengbokdeurim Village. Once we entered the gate, there were some people wearing traditional clothes greeted us. I recognized the clothes because I have seen a lot of Korean traditional music instrument performances. I knew we will be served a performance.

After having a really good and satisfying dinner, plus a bowl of hand-made makkoli (막걸리), a traditional alcoholic beverage of Korea made of rice, we were spoiled by traditional dances and music instrument performances. We spent a night at a traditional Korean house called Hanok (한옥) and the sleeping style is sleeping on the floor with heating system. It was a really great night under stars and fresh air, with great performances, food and drink, and most importantly, a very nice people.

Dueokhaengbokdeurim Village falls under the category of tradition. Last night we experienced traditional food, beverage, performance, and house. The next day, we experienced some other traditions. First activity of the day was to make a necklace. We had to draw our wish or whatever we wanted to draw on the necklace and we will take it to cemetery and pray for it to come true. 

The next few activities were really fun. We made rice cake! It was fun because we had to hit the compound with wood hammer. Then we had this competition of which team can make the most creative rice cake. Did not matter because in the end everybody won and got the prize. We also had game competition. We had to throw stick to the basket. I actually am really good in playing basketball at the game center, but really bad in this game. My team got the second place among 3 teams. Then before having lunch, we again showed our craftsmanship by making our own jegichagi.

Before going back to Seoul, we stopped by a place where a really famous Korean TV show called (translated) 1 Night 2 Days (1박2일) had been took place. I do not really watch the show but I know it is a really famous entertainment show. 

I think I have my own really amazing 1 Night 2 Days experience. I live and play in these big cities with asphalt road, concrete buildings, bunch of people. Sometimes it could be really stressful with study. Traveling and experiencing rural area was really an effective cure both physically and mentally. I really believe that rural20 project has reached its goal and it should keep going. 

Thanks to President Council for Nation Branding and Rural20 Project. I have really great experiences and to have met very great and interesting people was really a pleasure in my life.

Thanks for everything guys ^^

Visit Rural20 Project Official Website: http://www.rural20.kr/en/

angga | 앙가

Odong-do at Yeosu Revisited

Odong-do Island captured from
Yeosu Expo 2012

This is the second time for me to visit Odong-do. I did post the story on my blog about my first time to visit Yeosu. Maybe want to check it out first? Click here. The first time I visited Odong-do was on December, 2010. I went there with my Malaysian friend who traveled to Korea. We took boat to go there but this time we took bus. I think the bus costed like KRW 500? I do not know, KTO paid for us. It was actually nice to revisit Odong-do. The last time I just knew a bit of Odong-do since the guide was speaking in Korean and that time my Korean skill was awful. This time I might not understand everything, but at least I got the point. It means my Korean skill has been increased in the past 2 years. Oh, so proud of my self, hahah.

Proof that Odong-do is
a love island. I hope they
do not mind I post this, lol.

Odong-do is an island in Yeosu City. You do not have to swim or take ship to go there, it is really close to the mainland you can even walk to go there. I learned that it was given Odong-do as a name because long time ago, this island was rich of Odong trees, but not anymore. And the guide said something about the king who was born in this island, but I did not really get it, though. The guide also said that Odong-do is a love island. It is funny because two years ago I made up a story that Odong-do is a love island, it turned out that it was true. This is the picture that I took 2 years ago and I said Odong-do is a love island.
You do not go to Odong-do island if you do not go to the observatory. Do not expect to much, though. You can see the landscape of Yeosu Expo 2012 from the observatory. Also, I learned from the guide that we can see the border of Jollanam-do and Gyeongsangnam-do. Impressive, huh?
Actually, there are still a lot of things to see in this island. But the tour ended since we did not have much time. The closing was the music fountain.

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Yeosu Expo 2012

Assuming that you all know what Yeosu Expo 2012 is, I am just going to write about a glance about Yeosu Expo 2012 and my personal experience. After all, there are tons of information on internet about this event.
Yeosu Expo 2012 is being held at Yeosu city, Jollanam-do province, south of South Korea. I have been to this city once I think 2 years ago with my Malaysian friend. At that time, they were still building this expo. There are a lot of pavilions, exhibitions, facilites, shows, and etc. You can see the details here.
Given only roughly 9 hours to explore Yeosu Expo, it was not enough. I have only visited several pavilions and exhibitions. The waiting line was killing, there were even people fighting because someone tried to break the line.

Hanwa Aqua Planet Yeosu

I had to wait for 2 and a half [freaking] hours in the line to enter this Aquarium. On the website, it says that this aquarium is the largest in Korea and this is also one of the big ones at Yeosu. I do not know if that is true, but for me it was a disappointment to know that this one is said to be the largest. Even though it has this rare beluga whales and some other rare animals, there is not much variety of animals. There is, though, a really nice room with glass wall and glass ceiling, meaning it feels like we are underwater and we can see what is inside the water. There is also this big-screen type of aquarium that has tiny sharks in it and schools of small fishes, but I have seen that one at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago with more variety of animals, so not a surprise. What else? Penguin? I know I write as if it sounds boring, but actually for those who have not been to many aquariums, you might enjoy this aquarium.
Conclusion: worth visiting, but it really does not worth waiting for 2 and a half hours. Consider it.

International Pavilion

International Pavilion is really big. There are many countries participate and open their pavilion. I went to only several. Here they are:
Norway
Well, I should say it was pretty boring. we had to wait for 15 minutes then we went inside. They said we were going to ride a ship, but when we entered the room there was nothing but a captain explaining about something. Then we went to another room, we sat down on the floor and there were 3 screen and a pilot-type room. Oh, this is the ship? The screen then shows videos about Norway. It is good if you want to know about Norway. But if you want to have more than just seeing videos, do not go there.

Indonesia
My own country, huh? The screen was huge, maybe half of the room. I really enjoyed watching the video, I did not even know my country was that beautiful. There are some exhibition, too about batik and other stuff. But still, I expected something more.

Australia
I just got inside than got outside. What was inside again? lol. But the twitter-like bird was very cute.

Philippines
It's more fun in Philippines! Wrong. But I think it really is more fun in the real Philippines, though. Me wanna go there!

Malaysia
I did not go to the pavilion, but they had this traditional dance just beside their pavilion. It was so cute and I watched it for a while. And they were all good looking *grin*.

Many of my friends said that Germany was really good. But too bad I did not go there.

Expo Digital Gallery
I think it is easier to understand what this place is by watching this :)

Marine City and Civilization Pavilion

Now this one is pretty interesting. Starting the journey from the past. Human started to discover the buoyancy, then they made floating boat, row, sail, then a modern ship. People can travel a lot far across the sea and discovered new places. Also, people start trading things. It was interesting enough to experience the history of this. But little did I know, the most amazing part was after this.
Leaving the past, we proceed to the future. It was just very amazing how people can design the whole futuristic plan about life on the sea. First, they design a boat-type house with complete facilities. It has bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, etc. Power source is solar and water is purified sea water. You want to go to some island? Just enter the name of the place, and auto pilot will take you there.
Not only a house, they also designed the whole city floating on the sea. Isn't that just amazing? And everything looked very futuristic. But I was a bit scared, though. What happen to the life on the land? Has the number of people on the land grown so much that there is no space left on the land?
Anyway, I enjoyed this place very much. Recommended!

Posco
Besides their exhibition about their research, there is one fun thing: A giant (balloon?) dancing doll. They are really cute and they dance like crazy. You are so going there!

Lotte
Let's ride a hot air balloon! Even though you will not really fly to the sky, the experience is going to be real. The simulation was so good that I felt like really flying.

LG
It was started with a group of TV screen hang on the ceiling. Then the screen go up and down based on the video it was displaying. For example, if a boy is jumping, then several screens with go down while he was jumping. It was not really interesting. Then we watch 3D video on a very big TV screen. I guess they just want to promote their 3D TV screen.


Samsung
Waited for about 50 minutes just to find out a big disappointment. Samsung only gives like a theatrical show. Nothing "techie", even worse it really was nothing.

The Big-O Show

This is the main star. My friend told me there is a similar thing in Singapore. But I have never been to singapore nor have I seen thing like this, so it was ah-ma-zing! Lasted for about 30 minutes at night. The Big-O is a very huge O-shaped thing at the center of the expo. Surrounded by fountains that sometimes shoot the water up. The Big-O can produce mist and water, and can "breath" fire and glowing lights. Now the interesting part is, when the water falls inside the inner circle of the Big-O somewhere back there the light shoot the water and it becomes a water screen, producing image on the surface of the inner circle of the Big-O. Moreover, the Big-O makes some kind of mist that floats all over it. The light also shoot it and it becomes a really pretty aurora kind of light effect. The show has story and with combinations of those effects, it is a masterpiece. It was my first time to witness such a smart and beautiful show. This is a must. You see this show and nothing matters anymore.

Those are things I visited during my time at the expo. I wish I could visit more and tell you more about Yeosu Expo 2012. But the waiting line was argghhhh.
Interested to go there? Yeosu Expo 2012 will stay open until August 12, 2012. Hurry!

PS: looking for a place to stay while visiting Yeosu? Check my posting here.

angga | 앙가

2x22 Hours in Beijing

I took Air China to go back home and to Korea. The absolute reason that I took this airlines was because it was cheap! Many says that it is not good, but hey, it is cheap, what can you expect? But I think it was not bad at all, not that good either. Maybe for most people who had taken this airlines to go back to Indonesia thought that the most disturbing thing among all is to transit in Beijing for hours. Not for me, I enjoyed it every second.

Also, many told me that I would not be able to go outside the airport. Even a native Chinese told me that with a really ensuring face. Before leaving Korea, I even did some research about this and some even said that we even need visa just for transit. Dang! are you freaking kidding me. I was getting panic. I finally contacted the airport immigration through Q&A page and the reply was satisfying. It said that I would not be needing any visa and I could go out from the airport, too. But still, I was not that 100% sure.

Que sera sera, whatever happens happens. I arrived at Beijing International Airport at around 8 PM local time. There was no people in immigration line, just us. Then when it was my turn to go to talk to the officer, he told me to wait on another line, the special one. I was kind of freaking out. I thought I would be sent back because I have no visa or because of any other issues. But, somebody else was lining at that counter but there was no officer. Not long time, one officer came and asked us to follow her. And guess what, a stay visa permit stamp on my passport!

Sour fruit with frozen caramel

I met with another friend from CouchSurfing. His name is Lee and he, even though not a local, is a Chinese. It was not difficult at all to locate public phone at the airport, it is like everywhere. By using this public phone, we can call to local cellphone and land line. I called him and we decided to meet at Guloudajie station. To go there, first I had to get out from the airport heading to the airport express train. Airport express train has 4 stops: Airport terminal 3, Airport terminal 1&2, Sanyuanqiao where we can transfer to line 10, and Dongzhimen where we can transfer to line 2 and 13. And do not worry, all the station name has alphabet name under it. By taking the airport express train that costed me RMB 25 = USD 4, I went to Dongzimen station to transfer to line 2 and then took subway (RMB 2 = USD 0.32/trip) to go to Guloudajie. I got out from the exit number 1 and he was not there!! I was so scared since I could not find any public phone. I kept waiting until I looked at some teenager gathered around and I accumulated my bravery to ask one of them for a phone to call Lee. Just when I was about to call him, he showed up, oh, you have no idea of that feeling. He came with another 2 people, one from Russia and one from Pakistan. Four of us went to some famous streets in Beijing. I do not quite recall the name of the street but it was pretty empty, maybe because it was at night. It was not that memorable, to say it bluntly.

Free-of-pork dumplings

 The next day was the hit. I and Lee woke up early in the morning to have breakfast before we go to our main destination today. I do not know if this is a regular breakfast for Chinese but it taste yummy. It was dumplings and some sort of bread with sauce, also a bowl of egg soup. The main destination for today is the famous one and only, Forbidden City. It was freaking cold, but really worth it. I forgot to mention that Beijing is really (I mean really really) huge, and so is The Forbidden City. To get inside we need to pay RMB 40 = USD 6.4 or if you are a (Chinese) student you can get in by paying half price. One thing I should mention is that the counter lady was really rude. She just threw the ticket to a small hole at the counter. I mean, she should have been more polite and it would not have hurt anyone. I do not know if it is related with their culture, but for me it was rude. I do not really know much about this place, though. All I know is that this place is really huge, just like a mini city.

Me in front of the entrance

I did not take a guide since Lee went to somewhere because he had something to do. Thus, I was alone. Even though I had no idea whatsoever about the place, somewhat I enjoyed looking and taking picture of the buildings and patterns on the wall. Actually I was a bit tired exploring this place since it is really huge. It was like no end for this place. Until I found the exit sign. I went out and, duh. I ended up at the back part of the Forbidden City. I was planning to go to Tiananmen Square which is really near from Forbidden City. But then, I had to walk around to reach to that place. It was super far and I was super tired. One thing I noticed is that I saw so many public toilet along the road. I wonder why is there so many toilet here in Beijing. Tiananmen Square is just a huge square with I think a pretty horrible history. At the gate of Tiananmen there is a picture of Mao Zedong, the first Chairman of China. Well, that concludes my first short trip in Beijing. Before heading back to the airport, I went to a souvenir store neat Tiananmen Square and everything was really cheap!

The second time I transit to Beijing I had no where to go. I stayed at the airport until I decided to contact Lee again, and guess what? He was also on the way to Beijing and we were meeting at the airport! What a lucky me. I met him in the evening, and with a really short time, we went to Olympic Park to see two pretty buildings. One is a bird-nest like building and another one looks like bubbles.

They are really pretty. I feel so grateful to have met Lee. He likes travelling and helping traveler. I learned a lot from him. But dang, I did not have a chance to go to the Great Wall, maybe later? anyone?

Me with Lee's parent =]

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Indonesia - Malang

Malang, they say it is the second biggest city in East Java. I met a new friend over there, his name is Reza. We met in this traveler website called couchsurfing.com and He guided me to Batu city. As soon as I meet him, I asked for the famous local cuisine, bakso malang (Malang meatball). We had a quite long ride (he was riding motorcycle) just to find a good place to eat this special meatball, until we finally set our final destination to eat meatball in a place which location is quiet hard to reach. And I don't want to disappoint anyone here, but I think the meatball has nothing special (besides its size), the taste is just the same with any other regular meatball.

He then took me to his place. His place is quite nice, he lives with 3 other people in one shared house. He actually is not from Malang, but he came all the way from Medan to study there in Malang. The nice thing of his house is that we can see the view of a mountain.

Stomach is filled full, power is up, we went for another ride to Batu city, 30 minutes from Malang. And our first destination is a waterfall called Coban Rondo. I really enjoy waterfall, but to be honest, coban rondo did not really amaze me, but the journey did!! The road to coban rondo was bloody amazing. We went up to the mountain we can see the whole city and going inside, trees, vegetables, fields, all green and mist!! I can't believe I would say this, but the mist was beautiful, it was so perfect with the surroundings. I felt like I did not want to stop, I wanted to be on this ride with a breathtaking scenes all around me.

Coban Rondo waterfall

To those who wonders how to get there, it is really difficult to explain ... the easy way to say is "follow the direction" and public transportation? forget it. Bring your own vehicle, or rent one!

The weather was not really good for traveling actually. It was rainy and the road was really slippery and muddy. Our motorcycle got slipped and we almost fell twice. I should say that the road in Batu is somewhat poor. Batu city has awesome spot with spectacular view but yet it is a pain in ass just to get there. The road is hardly accessible and it is dangerous, I would say. I think this is a big problem in Indonesia's tourism. This happened to us on the way to Paralayang spot. We had to go through villages and to climb up the mountain. The bad road was really horrifying, plus it was so much misty. We even got lost in a resort which we thought it was the place we were going to but it was not. And after a long ride in a horrible road, we finally made it to Paralayang, even though it was ... sadly, misty which made us could not really see clear the below. And oh, that made me want to try paralayang someday.

Going through a village, but the view was so nice

Paralayang, very misty

But after a while, tadaaa ... made me want to jump

The end of the show. I was so grateful to have met Reza. He is very nice guy who has a big dream to go to Russia to see the architecture of the buildings. I, myself, believe that one day I will see him again, maybe here in Korea, or somewhere in Indonesia, or who knows maybe I will see him in Russia.

Me (left) and Reza (right)

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Indonesia - Jogjakarta 2

Now, this gets really interesting. I don't know the location exactly, because my friend was riding a motorcycle so I don't know how to get there by public transportation. But this place, worth visiting. The house of Raminten, it is a restaurant owned by Raminten and he is a guy and I think he is a crossdresser. For those who do not know what crossdresser is, it is a term for someone who likes to wear opposite-sex clothes. So, this Raminten guy wears girls/woman clothes and put it everywhere. I got some of postcard-size picture of him wearing some woman clothes. The food are nice and I can say they are pretty cheap for a hot restaurant. The serving guys are hot, so are the serving girls (maybe they are guys, too ... just kidding). And lucky me and my friend, we got the rare opportunity to take picture with the owner, Raminten.

At night, we decided to try Korean dish served in one of Korean restaurant in Jogjakarta called the Silla. I won't say much about this place. The style is quite different and the taste of the food is pretty much different than the real Korean food.

Now this is HOT part. Borobudur Temple. I think it is 1 hour and a half distance from the city of Jogjakarta and I should say we were pretty damn lucky. Why? It was not hot at all, it was cloudy yet it was not raining. And guess what the best part was, there was not many people at that time. I was told by my friend that usually borobudur is packed with people and it can be really boiling hot. So I would say, we were two lucky guys.

Entrance fee is IDR 30000 but I believe they have different (and might be more expensive) fee for foreigner. and we have to wear batik sarong as one of the symbol of awareness for our love to batik. And I love that sarong, so much.

Borobudur is huge, I think you need 2 hours to go all over the place. And it's pretty high with really stiff stairs so you need to be really careful. Beside the temple, there are also some other attraction or pretty interesting place to go. We went to this small museum that shows some pictures of people who have got their names written in Guinness World Record and it was pretty interesting.

Yup, that's all for Jogjakarta. I know there are still so much things to see, but I guess I visited the representative places. Next is Malang, the last place before I hit Surabaya and go back home :)

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Indonesia - Jogjakarta 1

From Jakarta, I took a night train to go to my next destination which is Jogjakarta. It took 9 hours from Jakarta to Jogjakarta by trains. There are 3 kinds of train. The most expensive one is executive train, and then below executive there is business train, and the last one is economy train. I took business class train to go to Jogjakarta, but trust me, it was so different from my expectation about this business class. There is no air conditioner, but fortunately I took night train so it is not hot at all. The people, the slept on the floor and the snack seller, they just throw trash on the floor. I wonder what economy class would look like.

Anyway, I arrived at Stasiun Tugu (Tugu Station) Jogja and picked up by my sister. Shortly, we went to Malioboro to find souvenirs. I expected Malioboro to have "something" but I think it is only a regular marketplace. Nothing really spectacular.

Next, I went to a fort called Vredeburg, but trust me you don't want to go there. There is nothing there. Now this is the interesting part, Prambanan Temple. Located moreless 1 hour from the heart of Jogjakarta city, I rode motorcycle with my sister to go to Prambanan Temple.

The entrance fee is IDR 30000 = USD 3.33 but I think they have different entrance fee for foreigner. It was really amazing since this was the first time for me to see such temple. And not far from this temple, there are also several other temples.

More later :)

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