Yesan Apple Wine Festival

Since this is the first 'judging' post, I'll explain the break-down in points a bit. Festivals are rated 1 out of 5 in five areas. The five scores will be added together and multiplied by four to get a score out of 100 (this is arbitrary). The five areas are: English information prior to festival, English information at festival, getting to the venue (how easy was it to find?), the venue itself, and experience.
English information prior to festival: This will be figured out by what can be found by the common visitor to Korea when they google the festival name, or search for information about it on the Korea Tourism Organization website (http://www.visitkorea.com).
English information at festival: This includes signs leading to the festival, signs on the stalls at the festival, pamphlets/timetables/schedule of events at the festival, as well as translators and other English speaking staff available to assist.
Getting to the venue: This is a BIG issue. Being a foreigner without a car, accessibility of the festival venue is a huge deal. If the festival is within walking distance of the main city bus/train station, that's good. Or if it's a far distance, are buses provided? If it's hard to reach, or nearly impossible to reach, that's no good.
The venue: Was the venue large enough? Was it clean? Was the lay-out understandable?
Experience: This is purely based on my opinion of the festival.

English Information prior to Festival: 0/5 There was NO official information about this festival in English, and very little in Korean.
English Information at Festival: 3/5 There weren't any English pamphlets, but all of the signs had both English and Korean. Also, of the staff working (mostly high school girls), there were a few people who could speak English well enough, and one worker who was fluent in English.
Getting to Venue: 0/5 Getting to the venue without a car was difficult.
Venue: 4/5 The venue was clean (it even had NICE toilet paper in the bathrooms) but it was a little confusing about where different things were, since the experience tents were separated by a building, and a hill (ie - Outside one side of the building, it was the second level of the building, but on the other side, it was the first level of the building).
Experience: 5/5 Plenty of fun activities to participate in, and because it was the last day of a small festival, it wasn't crowded at all!
TOTAL: 48/100 YIKES! That doesn't look good!


THE FULL DAY:


Starting out, I was a little worried. Okay, that's an understatement. I was TERRIFIED of just going to a festival when I had so little information. But I was determined to go (for the blog!) so Jordan and I got on the bus to Godeok at 11:20. The bus ride to Godeok was uneventful (other than an ajusshi chatting it up with us). We got off in Godeok and decided to get some food before heading to the festival, since neither of us had breakfast. There wasn't much for selection, so we decided to make it quick and eat kimbap from the convenience store. After eating, we walked around the town, hoping to see a taxi. No such luck, but as we were walking, I noticed signs for the farm where the festival was being held. We decided to just walk, since we didn't really have a choice. The walk was rather relaxing, but it also felt a little silly to be walking along the road in an isolated part of Korean countryside. As soon as we saw the entrance to the farm/festival, it started sprinkling. We walked up a HUGE hill to get to the festival, and saw some other foreigners getting out of a car (no idea how they found out about the festival, but it was good to see other people looking more lost than I was).
When arriving at the festival, we did a quick walk-through of EVERYTHING to see what all there was to do. We stopped at a food stall, and Jordan bought some jam and apple snacks. After that, we went back to the main area, and listened to a college-aged (I think) rock group perform for a bit.

We sampled some apple wine (better than a lot of wines I've had before) and paid to pick some apples. The price was a bit steep (10,000won for 5 apples), but that's to be expected for fruit in Korea. After picking the apples, I decided I wanted to make an apple pie! It was 3,000won (cheaper than buying the pre-made pies they were selling for 3,500won) so Jordan and I did that. While we were waiting for our turn, we talked a bit with the girls who were working there. They were high school students in Yesan, and when they found out we knew their teacher, they were SO excited! They even shared some of their bbq with us.

 It was AMAZING, so we decided that was our next stop while the pies were baking. We bought a plate full of meat for 10,000won, and while we were eating it, one of the workers came over to our table with another plate with sliced apple and two cups of makkolli. One of the other group of foreigners came and sat at the table next to us with her dog. Jordan and her talked about dogs for a while. I saw a Great Pyrenees at the festival (I think it lives on the farm), so I fawned over it for a bit.

After lunch, our pies were finished, so we picked them up, and ate them. They were a wonderful dessert for a great lunch. After that, we had pretty much done everything we wanted to do (there was also a place to make your own apple wine but neither of us were interested) and it was raining again, so we bought a bottle of apple wine (it'd be silly not to when that's what the festival was for) and asked one of the staff if they could call a taxi for us. He told us to wait, and told someone else to call. That person was getting the phone number when another worker came and asked us where we were going. We said just to Godeok to take the bus back to Yesan. He said (in Korean) to the the man inside, "Have you called yet? If not, don't. I will take them. It's only five minutes" It was SUCH a nice end to the day. On the way back to Godeok, he told us that he had lived in Canada ten years ago. When we were telling him about where we work, we found out that his two children go to one of Jordan's schools, so we were talking with the parent of her students! That was REALLY cool to get to talk with him, and experience such wonderful hospitality.

Despite the festival being hard to find information about, and being difficult to reach after arriving in Godeok, and it RAINING on and off the whole time, I had a REALLY good time (and no, that wasn't because of the alcohol). I would definitely go again, just to experience that hospitality.

Welcome!

After starting this blog, I have to wonder two things: 'Am I crazy to be starting yet another blog?' and 'How long is this one going to last?'

I actually wanted to make this blog back in April or May, but the internet in Korea was being weird and refused to let me access blogger sites.
Anyway, back in March, when I attended orientation with the new EPIC teachers, I was talking a lot about different festivals. A friend called me 'the festival queen' and I thought it was a pretty good title. I wanted to make the blog then to post information about getting to different festivals as a resource for my new friends so they could also go to festivals. But like I said, I couldn't get blogger to work, and the idea died. However, last weekend, a Korean friend mentioned there were around 200 different festivals in Korea each year, but that he had only been to maybe 5. I said I was sure I had been to at least 50 and I named a few.

I did a tally just now, and I was wrong. I've only been to 19 festivals in Korea. That's extremely disappointing to me, for having been here nearly three years now. So I've decided to try and make it to at least 50 festivals! I'll be chronicling my travels here, posting information about how I got to each festival, the cost of travel/stay, as well as my thoughts and opinions on the festivals! First up will be the Yesan Apple Festival in a few weeks.


And for anyone interested, these are the 19 festivals I have attended (in no particular order):
1. Gongju Baekje Festival (공주 백제 축제)
2. Namwon Chunhyang Festival (남원 춘향 축제)
3. Jinju Lantern Festival (진주 남강 유등 축제)
4. Jindo Sea Road Festival
5. Yesan Story Festival
6. Eumseong Pumba Festival
7. Yeongdong Dried Persimmon Festival
8. Wonju Hanji Festival
9. Andong Mask Dance Festival
10. Boryeong Mud Festival
11. Hongseong Napo Cultural Festival
12. Busan Firework Festival
13. Busan Sand Festival
14. Pohang Firework Festival
15. Gyeryeong Military Culture Festival
16. Gwangyang Apricot Blossom Festival
17. Nonsan Strawberry Festival
18. Muju Firefly Festival
19. Dangjin Celadon Festival