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Day Trip to Choichampandaek September 2016

Monday, October 17

Yesterday early morning a bus-load of Busan stake members gathered to take a day trip to Choichampandaek, which means House of Choi Champan (birth house/folk village). The House of Choi Champan is known as the setting of the famous novel ŒToji’ (ŒThe Land’) by the Korean author Park Gyeong-ri and consists of fourteen hanok (Korean traditional house) buildings.  Also used as the main set of the drama version of ŒToji’ (2004), Choi Champandaek gives visitors a look at the life of the Korean people in the late Joseon Era. The house has made its appearance in many films and is also a cultural asset/taste of what traditional Korean life was like long ago.  Janet, you may remember is Elder Min’s aunt and she ran the Cherry Blossom run the first year we ran it, is a doTerra believer/user (which are essential oils) so she pulled out of her backpack her supply of traveling oils that she shared with some of us. Janet put onto our hands a drop or two of wild orange oil and of peppermint oil, having us rub our hands together then rub it across the back of our necks, backs, shoulders, really what we could reach(my range of motion is not what it used to be) before breathing in the aroma from our cupped hands.  Dad had no idea what he was missing out on (Elder George was a good sport to participate in all this stuff).  When the bus arrived at this village we had to walk a ways from the parking lot, up a business/shoppes lined street to the folk village. I’ll send more pictures of what caught my eye.  I loved looking at the thatched roof huts that served as homes as well as barns/stalls (some had statues of cows and a farmer in them).  In the reading of this village on the internet I saw that visitors can sleep overnight in four of the buildings; choosing between the buildings without plumbing(it must have an outhouse out back somewhere) or some other building; though we did not see any sort of buildings that appeared to be for sleeping overnight in.  The weather was cloudy/rainy all day so I loved to look up toward the mountains and see the low lying clouds.








The woman who spoke to the group at the beginning of the tour was wearing shoes with springs/coils on the bottom of her shoes; putting spring in her step!  Information poster about the author of the book who came from this village.  The royal looking man wanted his picture taken with everyone.  He seemed to sit in his office bend him working on paperwork all day long until someone came by for a picture.   I thought these women work so hard all day long peeling chestnuts, trying to sell something to make a living.  Somebody bought the chestnuts and handed me one to eat.  I didn’t know what it was at first and thought it was just a small potato with a little bit of a harder texture but about the same taste as a raw potato.  The man/vendor’s outfit cracked me up!








I thought I would be bored walking through there but it was fun and amazing to see the varieties and the way they grew; some were so strange!

The gourds ripen/rot in order to drop their seeds down to the ground.


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