June 6th was Memorial Day in Korea, so I took advantage of the 4-day weekend to go down south to Jeonju to explore Jeonju Hanok Village (전주한옥마을).

I had planned this trip a few weeks ago but hadn't told anyone about it. The day before I was leaving I told my friend about my weekend plans and she expressed interest in going, so I invited her along. I bought us bus tickets for Friday morning, and things got off to a rocky start when she arrived late to the terminal and we missed said bus. We killed 2 hours in a cafe waiting for the next one.

We arrived in Jeonju around 2:30pm, ate a late lunch, and relaxed in our hanok room while waiting for the rain to stop. When it finally did, we walked around the streets of the hanok village and checked out all of the shops and food stalls before getting Korean barbecue for dinner.

Jeondong Cathedral (전동성당) - Catholic church built 1908-1914

Day 2

We checked out of our hanok around 10:30am, stopped at a cafe to get coffee, then walked around the village a bit more. It was way more crowded than it had been on Friday, and the streets were packed with people - many of whom were wearing hanbok, traditional Korean clothing.

There was some kind of pansori (which I guess is described as a form of traditional Korean musical storytelling) festival/competition happening throughout the day, so pansori singers could be heard all over the village. I actually really like pansori, and I was familiar with the song that this girl was performing a piece of, so I was loving it, but I think my friend was not a fan. It's definitely an acquired taste.

Omokdae (오목대)

Just across the street from the hanok village, built into the hillside, is Jaman Mural Village (자만벽화마을) with colorful buildings, murals, and quirky cafes. I had been looking out for one cafe, specifically, where you could take a picture sitting with E.T. I found the cafe and when we got there they were playing Move by SHINee's Taemin, so clearly it was my place. We walked around for a while taking pictures of all of the art before heading back to the hanok village to get lunch.

I love both the MIB characters and the Mars Attacks! guy, and I need them for me.

I really enjoyed this guy dressed in a king's hanbok zooming around town on a Segway - especially on the cobblestone streets.

There were so many interesting cafes that I literally did not have time to stop at all the ones I wanted to. Like, look at the theming of this place. The van Gogh backdrop is fantastic, and that's the cutest door greeter I've ever seen. I stopped to pet.

Before we left Jeonju, we stopped at the (original?) PNB location, a bakery famous for its Jeonju Chocopies, which are handmade and quite different from store-bought chocopies. I bought two big boxes of chocopies to give out to all of my coworkers and they were really psyched about them, so it's definitely a popular/famous snack here.

The stop at PNB was the last thing we did before heading to the terminal to catch our bus home (which my friend mixed the departure time of up again!!), which was smart because those chocopies were super heavy.