Ewha Peace Buddy Farm Experience at Chosung Kimchi Village
For our field trip with the Ewha Peace buddies they took us to a farm experience to Chosung Kimchi Village. It is located about an hour and a half from Ewha Women's university which seems far but it was technically still in Seoul. However it was pretty empty and felt like you were definitely out of the city. We rode a pretty nice bus in Hawaii standards its more like tour bus so the ride didn't feel too long.
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| Our Bus |
We arrived at our destination and broke up into smaller groups to do all the different activities. It was a little hard thought out the day because it was pretty much raining the whole day and even colder then usual but I think we made the best of it.
On to our First Activity..
For our first activity we did something similar to tye dying but with traditional dye and we used handkerchiefs. We first had to rubber band them for smaller rings and we had these plastic foam ties for rings that we wanted thicker.
After that we had to soak our handkerchiefs in warm milk and then we could put it in the dye which was the orange type mud mixture and massage it into our handkerchiefs. It was pretty cold and raining so it made it harder but the milk made our hands really soft. In the end my handkerchiefs looked pretty much just all orange and but it was fun making.
On to our next activity
To our next activity to make kimchi. That was for sure the activity I was looking forward to the most. We went into a room where we all had our own individual places to work and even aprons and headbands for each of us to wear at each station. On top of that our ingredients and materials were all there as well.
It was pretty easy to make just a spoon of four things which were sugar and ginger and two spices I believe and the pepper paste and we just mixed it all together. I learned the ginger is used to keep it from rotting and the sugar is used instead of salt.
We even got our own containers to take our kimchi home. I was really impressed with how professional it all was. And the kimchi was really yummy too!
Lunch Time!
Next Activity..
For our next activity after lunch we learned to play some traditional Korean games. This one involved four blocks which had writing on one side and the point was to throw them and get them all on the letter side and depending on how they landed different points were given.
After that we moved to a different room to play two different games one that was semi like a hacky sack but with tassels on a piece of plastic. I am not sure what that really was but no one could really do it for more the one try but I feel like I've seen it in a few dramas before. It was pretty hard to do.
The next game what were there was a pot and you had to get these sticks into the pot. I am not sure exactly what the name was but I have seen it before. Even standing pretty close I couldn't get it in. It was a lot harder then it looked.
The last thing we did that day was making rice cake or Ddok in korean. We got to see them make it in the traditional way by pounding the rice cake on a board. It was really fresh, you can still see the steam and the grains of rice in it. It was similar to the way that the Japanese make mochi I noticed but Japanese did it in a round stone pot where as the way a long wood shallow plate instead.
People even got to try and pound the rice cake too. I was surprised that the plate board thing didn't break cause some guys were going at it and it sounded pretty hard.
At the end they coated the rice cake in a soybean powder and we got to eat some. It was so fresh you could even taste the grains of rice still in it.
