The festival is fairly new. It began in 1999, and it is easy to see that tons of money and time have been put into the presentation of the pristine festival area. It was the kind of pristine that I like to call "Disney" pristine.
(This is a butterfly emerging from its cocoon before my very eyes!)
So, my fellow Korean expats, next may, I hightly recommend making the trek down to the small farming town of Hampyeong in South Jeolla Province.
Other than the festival, there is not much to do in Hampyeong, so I opted to stay in a Hotel in Gwangju, which was an easy 30 minute bus ride from the festival.
Plus, I had never been to Gwangju, which is the sixth largest city in South Korea, and I wanted to check it off my "to see while in Korea list."
It was a great and relaxing weekend, during which I got to spend some "me" time. I love being social and traveling with others, but I most definitely prefer traveling alone sometimes. It's empowering and gives me a chance to have a flexible itinerary. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I'm not a planner. Too much structure and too many time restraints make me claustrophobic (But my neurotic ways could fill a whole different blog!). I like to wake up in the morning with no plans or responsibilities and just spend a day exploring, which is why for me, traveling alone is like a breath of fresh air.
And that is exactly what my weekend in Gwangju/Hampyeong was, a breath of fresh air.
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