14 April 2026
The pre hanok experience
Jeonju hanok village at dusk
Tomorrow I will be spending all day at and in the vicinity of the world famous Jeonju hanok village, so what better way to prepare than to go there at dusk? There are actually a lot of historic things and museums, these all close at 6pm so my visit tonight was mainly the sideshow attractions and cafes and art stores made to look historic. The jury is still out on how much of the historic stuff is actually historic.
It is much larger and closer to my hotel than I realised, and also getting larger as you shall see. It is really the only thing going on Jeonju, and one of the main tourist things in all of Korea, so much so that I saw a French tour group, complete with French flags like they were on some kind of expedition to reclaim Korea for France.
There are 4 historic gates in Jeonju, and they are actually a bit away from the hanok village, much nearer a big market that I will also have to check out tomorrow. They look quite new to me.
In and around the market there are a lot of interesting shops. I am a fan of fans.
This is just one of many historic catholic or similarly Jesus related churches in the area.
Now for the hanok village outer commercial area, which is a series of very nice streets.
There are many cats, all orange.
Always looks better into the sun.
Very similar to Gyeongju from my previous Korea trip, only more trees here.
Pigeon is using the crossing.
Along here are lots of artist studios.
From atop the public toilet, a view of the village itself.
View of the view.
Garfield has glasses?
Here is one of the new historic hanok village streets under construction, there are many new historic areas coming soon.
Lots of interesting buildings, this is new, but made to look old. Hipster antiques inside, old bikes, smoking pipes, leather banana holders.
And finally my dinner. There were not many actual restaurants open in the hanok village area, just cafes for cake and strawberry themed everything. So instead I wandered back to my hotel area and went to a restaurant called 'casual Korean food', which seems to serve Korean versions of a poke bowl. Mine has strips of dried brisket, quail eggs and a few things I could not identify, on top of soba noodles, with a wasabi and honey soy dressing (I think). Not bad.
Tomorrow is all hanoking.