Chuseok is one of the biggest holidays here in Korea and it usually lasts about 4-5 days, but this year we had 10 days off because it fell on the same week as Korean Alphabet Day and National Foundation Day including two weekends. Having 10 days off for a national holiday is unusual here, so many people took full advantage and booked trips within Korea or overseas way ahead of time. But we decided to stay and visit a small village here in Korea. I really wanted a full Chuseok experience of visiting grandparents and relatives in the countryside, help out at the farm and eat fall seasonal food. But of course my husband and I don't have family in a remote countryside (that we know of), so I found a random village that took us in. 😆 This small, quaint village in the mountains is called 벌랏한지마을 located in ChungJu about 2 hours south of Seoul. (http://bulat.cheongju.go.kr) I called the number on their website, which is the number to the town leader in the pictures below, who arranged everything for us- to our accommodations, activities, and meals. I transferred 100,000 won for his services.

First, the drive down was beautiful especially as you get near the village. You get the spectacular view of the mountains, river, golden rice fields, and persimmon trees. As soon as we arrived, we got hands-on experience making Hanji (traditional Korean paper), went persimmon and jujube picking, peanuts and sweet potato digging, and stayed overnight at a grandmother's house.

It was a great experience for both myself and my kids. They loved making their own paper and farming, but it made it extra special because of the people in this town who welcomed us into their homes. My kids loved getting all the attention from the grandparents and I think they in turn loved having little ones running around.

Here are pictures of making Hanji. This was definitely one of the highlights of this trip. I was surprised how attentive and good at following directions my kids were. They are all grown up! 😭










The few restaurants in the area were all closed because of the holidays, so they opened up a local restaurant just for us and fed us dinner and breakfast there. The food was delicious and fresh, but the owner charged us by the head including our kids who are all under 6, which I thought was a little too expensive, but we had no other choice since like I said, all the other restaurants were closed.


























After one night stay at this village, we drove about 20 minutes to visit Presidential Villa (청남대) where Korean Presidents vacation time to time. It was beautiful with a lake, a private golf course, and monuments of past Korean Presidents. We didn't know, but you can bring your own food and picnic at designated areas. If you ever want to visit, here are few tips.

1. If you are driving here, make sure you visit their website and pre-register.  http://chnam.chungbuk.go.kr/
2. Take some food or snacks and relax having a picnic by the lake or at the viewpoint.
3. Do not go into any grassy areas like the golf course even if there are no signs like us. 😂
4. It's a big place, so you can see everything in one day, but I recommend sitting on the President's desk and taking a picture. Not sure how much my kids understood it, but they still had fun pretending to be the President. Maybe it's just the desk?










I know this wasn't a typical vacation, but it was great experience for our family to visit a small village and see different areas of Korea.

After this trip, we still had 6 days left, so we took a day trip to hot springs in YiChun. It was like a small water park with warm water. http://www.termeden.com/
We picked this place because it was only one hour away from Seoul and they had a 50% off deal for families with three kids or more this week. 👊 And since the water is warm here, you can swim even in the cold months.















I highly recommend this place for a family day trip. It has shallow, warm pools that are good for toddlers and babies and a few slides that older kids would like. They also have a snack bar and a cafeteria. We had lunch, snack, and dinner here and everything we had was decent for the price.

I hope you enjoyed this post. Please leave a message if you have questions or comments. 👋