Jeonju

JEONJU. FINALLY. I visited this town last year and I missed it a lot. Nature and tradition is more of my thing so I wanted revisit and see this place. I themed this trip: walking and healing. Surprisingly, I wasn't tired by the hours of walking. I'm not one for walking or exercising.
 I had been waiting months to visit the town again, just to see the old Korea in my favorite season Fall. I waited 16 months. OTL I was actually holding it off because of the train ticket price to visit Jeonju, and the odd timings for the train trips considering my school. I also hated traveling overnight by myself. My friend told me about a free shuttle bus so I decided to step out of my comfort zone and go for it.



Dongbo Travel offers a free shuttle bus that ferries foreigners to and from Jeonju or Gwangju. This service runs only on the weekends (fri-sun) and runs on a balloting system. You are supposed to propose your departure and arrival date, and the company will work out the name list to fit the bus limit. Each applicant is only allowed to apply for a maximum of 2 tickets.
The bus departs from Seoul at 8am and arrives at Jeonju around noon. Later in the day, the bus departs from Jeonju at 5pm and arrives in Seoul around 10pm. If you plan on just staying within the traditional village, then one day will be enough for you. If you want to visit the historical sites and parks outside the village, go for an extra day and take your time. You can apply for the Friday Seoul shuttle ticket and a Sunday/Saturday Jeonju shuttle ticket.
Apply for your shuttle ticket here!
[Update: Check out the comments section! I feel honored that they read my post. o.O Hehe excited rookie blogger... Anyways, the Free Shuttle is closed for January and February, and will restart in March. I believe it's for the safety of the passengers due to the icy roads? That's just my guess. For tourists arriving in January or February, I guess it's the train for you then? I'm not sure if the KTX strike has blown over yet...]

One thing about touring Jeonju: you need a car. And GPS. Sites outside of the village require you to know the address for the taxi driver or the GPS system. I spent quite a lot of money on cab fare because the bus map was totally different from the Google maps directions. The taxi driver even brought me to a different site with the same name. WIN.

Day 1

Pumpkins in a tree…Yes… 

First, lunch. I tried the "Baekban" meal recommended by tourism sites. "Baekban" means "hundred dishes" or something around those lines. For KRW6,000, you can get 14 side dishes inclusive of stews and meats. I'd recommend couples to share one order of the baekban.

6 dollars, people.

Directions to 지연식당: 

From 경기전, walk right down one block to 팔달로 road and cross the road. Turn right and walk until 전라강영로. Walk down one block past the police station and further. 지연식당 is on the next block.

So I had a whole itinerary for Jeonju, but that flew out the window when the taxi driver took me to a different location. I decided to just visit the monuments near my location, which was actually my itinerary for day 2. The common monuments are fairly close to each other so you can find all of them within two(?) hours.

Arrived at a random "where"

Walked up the steps to uncertainty

It was a Buddhist temple so I didn't go in

Walked down to Hanbyeokdang

Crossed over to the Confucian school

Found the Namcheon Bridge

Imokdae

Omokdae

If you are looking for other places to visit, I can provide some locations that I visited. There's the Deok-Jin Park. The park has a huge pond full of lotus and a suspension bridge to cross over the enormous pond. There's supposedly a waterfall but I couldn't find it.

Then there's the food. When Koreans are asked about Jeonju, they usually answer, "Bibimbap". Jeonju has fresh ingredients that make the best Bibimbap because their bibimbap is refreshing. The big bean sprouts are Jeonju's specialty, and the seasoned raw beef makes it additionally delicious. I, personally, have never had warm bean sprout soup that's cooling. Have you? Anyways, if you are in Jeonju, I recommend taking a taxi down to GoGung (고궁). Some bloggers have said that this is the typical and tourist-y restaurant to get Jeonju Bibimbap, which to me meant that the food would not be good. Boy, was I wrong. Out of the three different places I visited, this was the best. The price was the same, but the taste was so different.
Directions: Take a taxi. Tell them "Gogung Restaurant" or this address: 168-9, Deokjindong2-ga, Jeonju, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea.
Alternatively if you are going from Deokjin Park, turn right and walk to the huge highway. Gogung is a building by itself.

Jeonju raw beef Bibimbap KRW13,000

My favorite autumn squash pancake

If you cannot visit Jeonju, there is a branch at Myeongdong near Myeongdong station exit 11. However, the price is higher and the food is not as fabulous. KRW15,000 for the raw beef bibimbap.
Directions: Turn right behind the Uniqlo building and walk until you see "고궁". The restaurant is on the second floor.

Update: Guess what! EatYourKimchi have done their own vlog about the Gogung Bibimbap! You can check it out here too. (Perhaps these lovely Westerners will convince my dear disgusted Westerners to eat the raw beef... My own Asian friends were terrified when they heard about raw beef.)

[2015 Update] After I went back to Gogung in Myeongdong, I decided to try the Moju모주. It was only W2,000 per cup. It tasted like a milky cinnamon sweet drink. It was good taste! However, I couldn't feel the alcoholic kick so I don't know what's so alcoholic about it.

Day 2
I thought I'd have the famous rice-soup for breakfast but since there was a long queue, I didn't bother. Instead, I had Bibimbap (again) for breakfast near the Gyeonggi Palace. It was, of course, not as good as Gogung's.
Directions: From the Gyeonggi Palace entrance, turn right into the alley and walk on until you see a building restaurant selling the bibimbap.

Raw beef bibimbap KRW13,000

Before breakfast, though, I decided to enter the palace to avoid the afternoon crowd. There is a small entrance fee.

Entering the Gyeonggi Palace

The Catholic Cathedral
(Lol I had to share this)

Pungnam Gate

I visited the Confucian school again and roamed around the traditional village. Don't be surprised by the number of weddings you walk into at Jeonju. They tend to use the monumental sites as wedding venues.

Confucian School

First, there's the archery ground. This ground was used by the aristocrats to practice archery. To this date, the ground is still being used by citizens, and the rest of the area has been turned into a park.

I could hear arrows fly past me

I later found another restaurant in the traditional village that was also famous for the rice-soup, so I had it for lunch.

KRW6,000?

This dish was not so impressive for me. There wasn't anything that stood out to me except for the super long queue. And it was hot so it was a little difficult to rush.

Here's a map of the places that I visited, in case you are confused. It's up to you to make your route ^^ Also, Gogung and Deokjin Park are off the map because of their distance from the village. So I recommend a taxi so you don't get lost.

I had visited Jeonju during the food festival so there were many exhibits for the food competition. These are entries created by the young chefs of cooking academies.

The milk foam looked creepy.

The traditional king's dessert.
(Available in Seoul)