[Travel Bits] Festivals, sights across Korea

Yanggu Gomchwi Festival

The 2021 Yanggu Gomchwi Festival will be held online from Wednesday to Saturday, in concern over the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, the festival will feature online lectures, a cooking show and live commerce events, promoting gomchwi, a mountain herb that is characterized by its unique bitter, soft and savory flavor. The festival organizers will also operate a drive-thru order pickup service for visitors who would like to purchase spring gomchwi. 

Yellow Forest in Kimcheon

Kimcheon, North Gyeongsang Province, has set up a forest decorated with yellow furniture pieces and objects, named the “Yellow Forest.”

The project was inspired by the Purple Island in Sinan. Two islands in the Sinan area in South Jeolla Province are blanketed in a hue of purple, with all the roofs and streets also painted purple.

Kimcheon hopes to attract tourists with its new Yellow Forest. It will feature hands-on activities such as woodcraft classes in the forest. 

Mountain biking in Wonju

A mountain bike park has opened in Wonju, Gangwon Province.

The park features 10 mountain biking trail courses for riders of beginner, intermediate and advanced levels.

This is Korea’s first mountain bike park.

Due to the pandemic, only the bike courses have opened. Other facilities such as camping sites and recreational zones will open at a later date.

Wonju hopes to host competitions and a festival at the park in October, and plans to open an academy for mountain biking. 

Jeonju Hanji Culture Festival

The 25th Jeonju Hanji Culture Festival is set to open Wednesday.

Every year, the city of Jeonju, North Jeolla Province, holds a hanji festival to celebrate the legacy of traditional handmade paper.

Due to coronavirus concerns, the 2021 edition of the festival will be held both offline and online for a month.

The online part of the festival will feature lectures, contests and hands-on activities related to hanji, spanning three weeks. In early June, the festival will wrap up with an offline hanji fashion show, featuring clothing made of mulberry paper.

Hadong Tea Festival

The 24th Hadong Tea Festival will be held online from May 15 to 23.

The organizers of the festival discussed canceling the annual event due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, but decided to hold the festival to promote the 2022 World Tea Expo.

To prevent the spread of the virus, this year’s festival will mainly feature contactless online activities with limited offline activities across Hadong, South Gyeongsang Province.

To help tea plantations that have experienced difficulties due to the festival’s cancellation last year, this year’s festival will feature Hadong tea leaves in several e-commerce events as a way to introduce the tea vendors to a new retail market.