Welcome to American Village, a place designed to lure Korean-Americans back to their homeland with its beautiful surroundings and American suburbia style homes.
I have to admit that the views of Aenggang Bay are amazing. Continue reading
Namhae is such a great place to escape bustle of the city. Driving along the winding roads wasn’t my favorite thing, but I still really enjoyed the beautiful scenery even though I was a little bit nauseous! If you’re prone to motion sickness like I am, I highly recommend taking some medicine before driving around the island.
We set out to find Darangee Village because they are supposed to be some incredibly beautiful rice terraces there. I learned about the rice terraces from an article by CNN Travel called “50 Beautiful Places to Visit in Korea.” The rice terraces are number 3 on the list and the featured photo is of a group of tourists watching and helping a farmer plant the rice, with the help of a ox. Really cool, right?
We had some difficulty finding the village. Initially, The address listed on the CNN Travel article was missing some information that our navigation system required. Thankfully, there were some signs along the way.
After our stay at the Hi Class Pension in Namhae, we had breakfast at the Hilton and then set out for some sightseeing. If we hadn’t been going to the Hilton, we might have never noticed the art village, but we are so glad that we stumbled across it.
Can you spot the Hilton in the background?
Namhae Island is a really rural area full of rice and garlic fields. As we pulled out of the Hilton, we spotted a mural of The Simpsons.
I decided I wanted to explore further so we drove up the narrow street through the village.
I first heard of the Hi Class Pension (now called High Class Pool Villa) through Everyday Korea, a blog that has a section on unique accommodation in Korea (among other things). Dave and I had just come back from Phuket where we stayed in an amazing pool villa and we were craving more. We checked the prices on the Hi Class website and were really shocked by how expensive they were! In fact, at $700 a night (during high season), they were more per night than our Phuket pool villa. I was a bit hesitant about staying at Hi-Class for that price, but Dave decided that we should bite the bullet and do it, just for a night.
Hi Class pool villa
In my last post, I told you a bit more about what Haeundae Beach is like during summer. My next summer time recommendation is Tongdosa Temple. It’s located in Yangsan, just between Busan and Ulsan.
There’s a stream near the entrance that is quite popular among the Koreans.
Dave and I took a road trip to Gyeongju after he got off work on Thursday night. I wanted to take photos of Anapji Pond at night. It was quite rainy, but we were still able to get some good shots.
Gyeongju is the same city where you can see the lotuses bloom in summer. In fact, there’s an amazing lotus pond just outside the entrance to Anapji.
Entrance fee to Anapji Pond is 1,500 won per person.
It can get really busy at night so it’s a good idea to get there a bit before the sun goes down so you can get a parking space and a good spot for photos. At least that was our experience this week, which happens to be the same week most Koreans go on vacation.
Our last day on Jeju Island was a busy one. We knocked out two “theme parks” in one day. First, we went to the Trick Art Museum. It’s a great little place where you can become part of the art. I went to an exhibit when I first got to Busan back in February 2011 (click HERE for the photos from that trip) and Joni loved my photos so I knew if she ever visited I’d have to take her to the permanent museum they have on Jeju.
After the Trick Art Museum, we went to Locadio World. It’s a place where you can play dress up! I think it’s basically a TV show museum and they have different sets and allow you to dress up and take photos. You walk yourself through so we just kind of had to figure it all out as we went along. After the Korean section, they have an international section, too. It was a lot of fun!
If you click on the first photo, you can easily scroll through the entire set. Or you can click on photos individually.
Life Outside of Texas 