World Flavor

Interesting wall art on Ganghwa Island, which is technically in Incheon, South Korea. This was near the Hwamunseok Experience.

During orientation, on August 23rd, we had a field trip to Ganghwa Island (강화도). Ganghwa Island is technically part of Incheon (but located closer to Gimpo, where the national airport is) and is located just by the northwest tip of mainland South Korea. Here is a handy map for reference.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia. Ganghwa Island is in red.

As you can see, Ganghwa Island is pretty close to North Korea. There is a small channel between them (about 2 km wide). The first place we went was the Peace Observatory.

The Peace Observatory is on a hill next to the channel facing North Korea, so you can see North Korea from there. We also got a small talk about the history of the area and about the one city in North Korea with South Korean factories (Kaesong). Then we had time to look at North Korea. We also stopped in the gift shop but opted not to buy any NK money because it was incredibly expensive.

Next we were taken to lunch. Lunch was bibimbap, and it was quite good.

Following lunch we took a short walk to the Hwamunseok experience. Hwamunseok is a reed mat traditionally woven with nice designs. We were shown how to make it and proceeded to create a small one. We were doing it for about two hours and only created small, simple mats. It was interesting and I like having my little mat as a keepsake.

The next place we went was the Bugeun-ri Dolmen site, a pre-historic burial ground which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We spent a little while looking around the various dolmen, and then moved on to the Goryeo Gungji Palace site. This was where in the Goryeo dynasty, the government resisted the Mongol Invasion for quite a while. The Goryeo were eventually defeated but a peace treaty was struck, so that Korea was never fully taken over. Many of the buildings on this site were burnt down by the French navy in 1866 during the Byeongin Yangyo Conflict.

After that the group found a small shop selling ice cream and we bought pretty much all of their ice cream. Then we took the bus back to Seoul. It was a good but long day.