Our next stop – Nagan Eupseong Folk Village – was quite some distance away from the Suncheon Drama Film set, but we easily found a cab to bring us there. The journey took 38 minutes, and we again had a driver that was an F1 enthusiast and who crossed 110 km/h speeds at spots!
It was well past noon when we got to the village. There is a street that runs along the breadth of the village and has about half a dozen cafes and small restaurants, and is bookended by GS25 convenience stores. We checked into the Jangmonim Chicken restaurant that was run by a middle-aged woman and what looked like her son. We ordered two pork cutlet sets and a boneless chicken dish cooked with ‘half-and-half’: half of it was fried chicken, and the other sweet and spicy. The restaurant didn’t have an English menu, so Google Translate came in very handy again to help us translate the Korean menu.
The helpings that arrived were generous: the pork cutlet piece was almost twice the size of usual tonkatsu-styled pork cutlets, and the plate of chicken alone would have fed three adults. The auntie was also very sweet and took an immediate liking to Peter, and helped him with utensils, fold up the sleeves of his sweater – and after our meal, even gave him a hug and a complimentary apple juice drink. The wife quipped that the auntie clearly favored Peter haha.
Our tummies very filled, we entered the village using our purchased integrated passes. The village is actually a walled town, with a four meter tall stone wall surrounding the area, and there is an accessible elevated walkway behind the wall rampart. The construction of the town’s stone fortifications started in the 15th century and took about two centuries to complete. The village itself is rectangular, and has a number of houses with thatched roofs. The walled town was designated a historical site in June 1983, and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2011.
The village looks lived-in too: some of the houses looked like they are actual residences. From the exterior they looked traditional, but the modern amenities were obvious: including air-conditioning/heater units, and even parked vehicles.
Pictures!
I found the visit at least middling interesting: there were information boards at selected buildings in the area, though visitors were generally just exploring the buildings from the outsides only. Coupled also with the fact that the place is some distance away from Suncheon Station, I reckon you really only should be including this place in your itinerary if you have time to spare in Suncheon.
We covered the village in about a hour and headed out just after 2PM. We were also a little worried if we would be able to call a cab to bring us back to Suncheon Station: but we got lucky and managed to get a cab that was (just) 15 minutes away. We were back in the Station area by 3PM, and decided to take it slow for the rest of the day, as we’d be leaving Suncheon very early on Day 09 morning to catch our KTX train to Seoul.
To be continued!