Haenggungdong Mural Village

The 5th WSK Camp (5)

Next destination after Yongjoosa Temple (read previous post) we were brought to a restaurant for lunch..yoohooo...Apparantly,  it was a special lunch because we would have lunch together with Suwon Mayor. Now I know why we were rushed at Yongjoosa Temple ^^

(Picture credited to Lisa Liang)

Take a picture with Suwon Mayor after a very delicious lunch.

The restaurant is not a big and lux one as the one where we had our Samgyetang dinner the day before. The ambience is homy and humble. You can feel you are in old style of Korean restaurant, but still it is clean and neat.

 Entering the first room of the restaurant, I saw many glass bottles, big and small, filled with ginseng and alcohol. I guess those ginsengs have been stored for quite a long time. The restaurant owner has many bottles, not only those on the pictures. Ginseng is healthy for our health but also expensive ^^. The longer you keep the ginseng, the better it is for your health when you eat it.

You can make it by yourself, too. I did a quick search on the internet and found how to make it.

How to make fresh ginseng with Soju:

1. First you need bottles of soju. Soju is Korean vodka with an alcohol content ranging from 20-23%. They can be purchased at liquor stores.
2. With fresh ginsengs, place them in a position where the heads face upward. Keep pouring soju until it covers the top of the heads.
3. Put a date sticker on top of the jar and keep it in a dark place at least for next 6 months. Older it gets, better it will taste.

source: http://kpcginseng.50webs.com/Ginsengfreshroot.html

Our lunch was a tipical Korean lunch with variety of side dishes, tofu soup, bulgogi (beef) and fish. Makgeoli (Korean rice wine) was served, too. I sipped a little bit just to try the taste, didn't finished my full cup of the rice wine. I still had long journey back home after the camp, so I didn't want to collapse because of too much drinking. Besides I still breastfeed JoSH.

The side dishes were awesome. Some of them I never tried before. There were mushroom, radish, peas, green vegetables (I don't know the name), clam, sprout, salted fermented crab, and many more...^^

After lunch, the Mayor guided us to see Haenggungdong Mural Village, located not far from the restaurant. We stopped at a very old building that is still preserved till now. From the blurred painted hangeul on its wall I could see that it was used as a church in the past.

The exterior of the building  was covered with painted small tiles and arranged nicely. The small tiles were painted by the citizens.

The Mayor told us that he also painted a picture on a tile. He pointed to a tile. Can you guess which one? It is the one on the right of blue shirt little boy tile. It is a cherry blossom tree, I guess.

Inside the old building, the rooms is now used as artists' studio. This is one of the studio at level 2.

Picture credited to our 5th WSK member, I forgot from where I took this picture in facebook. Hehe...sorry ^^

Finally the full team pictures, with Suwon Mayor, our guide, Suwon City staffs, Presidential Council of Nation Branding team and all of us.

Next post: Gongbang (Arts & Crafts) Street & Tea Shop