bismillah..

This one will be my last post about WSK 3rd Camp..

I have so many post debt.. including my trip to England.. hoho.. but this one, I’ll finish this.

So, my mood was missing this few days when I tried to post through Mail application in my Mac. It just crashed.. eeww… but tonight, I managed to put it on.. and bring the story to you.. ^^

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So we were visiting the Joseon Dinasty.. or we usually call it.. Lee Dinasty, since the family ran the kingdom was from Lee of Jeonju. Um.. The first king was King Saejong, and the area occupied.. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Locator_map_of_Korea.svg . Also, Jeonju was once the capital city of the Baek Jae Kingdom.. the kingdom before the era of Joseon Dinasty.

So, we were visiting their resident, actually it was not resident like home, but more like a temple. Yet there three gates guarding the entrance and there were some private area still belong to the living descendent of Lee family. Unfortunately, when we came there, the area was in refinement. So, we couldn’t come near to the buddha statue sitting there. Anyway, there were so many symbolization of things. For example, there are three door in each gate. The left, right and center. The right is for entrance, and intentionally placed at the east. The left one *we are talking from the point of view of coming* are for exit, placed at the west. Just like the sun rises from east, and set on the west. Meanwhile, the center door, at the four times size, are specifically for the King path.

There was also a Red Gate, believed to be protecting from bad evil. The gate was placed between the first and second gate.

Another symbolization was the color used by the king suit in the painting. The color of King Saejeong was Yellow, symbolize the “beginning” of kingdom.. and there was also the color of red, symbolize wealth. Blue symbolize … ah.. i forgot.. kkk sorry.

I think same like china, dragon is believed to be a holy creature. The king will have dragon carved in his statue or printed in his suit. Having 5 claws.. if you wonder, why is it odd? yes.. it is odd, it has 5 claws.. not 4 or 6. and the claws were placed in series, none of them aligned horizontally. Kind of weird right? :S but that’s how the dragon was described.. and five is a perfect number just for the king. The Prince might only have four claws in dragon, prime minister three.. and so on..

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She is our guide that day.. 🙂

Stylish I think.. kk

In the area of temple, so many bamboo trees, since the bamboo is very useful for many things. In indonesia, we can make almost everything from bamboo.. 😀

We also fought the inlander using sharpen bamboo (Bambu Runcing)

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The kingdom was running for more than 300 years, it has a long history as kingdom in Korea. It even has a library building called Jenju Sago.. store books and records from the kingdom as displayed below.

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This one is some kind of memorials, I forgot what was really written there, with chinese letters. As you can see, there is a toddler beneath the rock. Toddler symbolize long live.. since it can live for hundreds of years.. and it also can swim, so it is likely to survive in any terrain.

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In jeonju, the famous one is its Jeonju Bibimbap… I don’t really understand what’s the difference is .. kkk um.. bibimbap actually just like a meal in my country called “Gado-Gado”, it means “everything  mixed”. It was quite delicious actually, yet I don’t like vegetables.. sorry.. 😀

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Next to visit is some traditional medicine center. The potion made from animals.. such as lizard.. kkkk

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Here are some patients waiting for their turn.. 😀

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Do you know about Korea Paper? called Hanjin (한진) . The main difference is on the texture and strength of it compared to the chinese or japanese paper. Hanjin is thin, even a light quite much passed through it. It is made from Bulberry branches. This time, we visited the traditional way of Korea Paper factory.

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The above picture is the young tree, and below is the raw materials that will be mixed with water and let to be a paper pulp, prepared for the next process..

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This is the fan, made using hanjin..

🙂

We will decorate it.. using a glue and color papers..

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Here is our tutor today.. I don’t know her name.. 😛

anyway.. she said that there are three things famous from Jeonju, first one is Bibimbap, the king only wants Jeonju Bibimbap for his lunch.. hoho

The second one is Jeonju paper, exported to Japan and China.. the king only wanted to use Jeonju paper to write.. hoho.. 😀

The last one is .. let me try to remember it.. um…

ah.. the Fan it self.. 😀

so, they are still making Jeonju fan, made of hanjin, given to the Korean officer every years as a new years gifts or some special occasions. 🙂

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I took their pictures with their masterpiece.. see.. looks wonderful.. 🙂

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And this is the one I made.. as I mentioned from my previous post.. inspired by the Hanbok Letter.. 😀 here

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We went inside to the factory..

I think about 3000 sheets of paper produced in the factory.

And the special thing is all done by hand.. so, it’s gonna be quite pricey i think.. 😀

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These are the dry paper.. ready for cutting..

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At the exit.. we saw some hanbok made of paper.. 😀

Um.. wonder.. then we found out that they are only worn by dead people.. kkk

I was worried about the sweat that will torn the paper actually.. 😛

And.. the clothes will be buried along with other precious things the person had in life..

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I think..

that will wrap up our journey..

we had so much new things to learn..

🙂

We had a new understanding of Korea

not only by what we usually see.. but the history and culture we explored in just a very short period, but it marks in my mind…

I think, I fell in love with Korea in some ways.. hehe..

That’s why I intended to continue my study here. 🙂 still considering though..

There is a very important thing I need to make clear now in Indonesia.. hoho.. after that finished. i can move forward… insya Allah.. *by God’s willing*

see you on my next journey post..

*sooo many debttt.. hoho.. post debt @_@ *

O yeah.. I forgot to mention that we will have the 4th camp this 27th.. hoho.. 4 days trip.. ^^