Get your Gangneung on and experience the city beyond just its beach

Food & Travel

Published: 26 Feb. 2024, 07:43

Get your Gangneung on and experience the city beyond just its beach

Korea is witnessing a surge in foreign tourists, but the crowds are heavily focused in its capital metropolis, Seoul. Despite great landscapes, gourmet delicacies and grand festivals, rural areas across the peninsula are having a hard time attracting tourists. With the goal of welcoming 20 million foreign travelers to Korea by the end of this year, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism introduced a two-year project, Local 100, in October 2023. The culture minister will personally visit each of the 100 selected areas throughout 2024 and 2025 to introduce Korea’s hidden gems and find out what the central government can do to help spread the tourism wealth. The Korea JoongAng Daily will be accompanying the minister on his journeys.

Visitors at Gangenung’s Daegwallyeong mountain pass last month. The mountain is a famous hiking trail all year round. [YONHAP]

GANGNEUNG, Gangwon — Gangneung Danoje is an annual traditional festival that takes place in Gangneung, an eastern coastal city just a two-hour train ride from Seoul. The festival is held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, known as Dano.

Dano, which means the “highest day” or “god’s day,” is one of the three most celebrated traditional holidays in Korea, along with Chuseok and the Lunar New Year. Traditionally, the people of the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) in Gangneung would gather together about four weeks prior to the day to celebrate all the hard work of planting crops and worship the mountain gods in hopes of a good harvest and to wish for peace and prosperity within the town and each family.

Known as Danoje, or Dano Festival, it is the festival with the longest history in the country and is Korea’s Important Intangible Cultural Property. It was inscribed on Unesco’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list in 2005.

This year, Dano falls on June 10 and the Gangneung Danoje Festival Committee said the city will be having a large festival from June 6 to 13.

“Why don’t all the citizens of Gangneung don hanbok [Korean traditional dress] to enjoy this year’s Danoje?” Culture Minister Yu In-chon suggested during his visit to the city last month after watching a shaman ritual that usually takes place during Danoje at the city’s Chilsadang, an old traditional building that used to serve as a government office that oversaw seven administrative areas including tax and agricultural development.

Gangneung Danoje is the city’s annual festival held on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, known as Dano. [YONHAP]

Yu’s two-day visit to Gangneung was part of the ministry’s Local 100 project. He was accompanied by some 50 people who were selected to experience the hidden gems of the city with the minister, in an attempt to revitalize local tourism.

“I’ve always felt it was a pity that such exciting and historic festivals like Gangneung Danoje gets enjoyed only by Gangneung citizens,” Yu said, adding that this tradition should be promoted so that people from outside the city and across the globe could get interested in visiting and participating.

Chilsadang, where the shamanistic ritual was showcased for visitors, is where the festival kicks off every year. Gangneung people gather together here to watch the ritual as committee members prepare to brew a sacred liquor called sinju. The liquor is made using rice voluntarily donated by the citizens and is used in religious rituals as offerings to the gods of the mountain range near the region. This year’s ritual of making sinju will be held on May 12.

Gangneung Mayor Kim Hong-kyu, who also joined the two-day tour, said the city government plans to expand and provide its support for this year’s festival, in which different districts of the city all take part in Danoje to help spread the word. The Gangneung Danoje Festival Committee said that they are also thinking about creating a year-round ritual performance for travelers at the Chilsadang so that visitors to Gangneung can get a glimpse of what the city’s historic festival is like at any time of the year.

Also within the city is the Ojuk Hanok Village, a relatively newer complex that consists of 19 hanok (traditional Korean house) units with 32 rooms to accommodate travelers. It was built in 2016, ahead of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, during which some events were also held in Gangneung.

This year, the Gangneung Danoje Festival Committee will be launching two pilot programs for tourists to the hanok village — sinju-making and a six-course Dano dinner.

For the sinju-making experience, participants are given a yugeon, or a traditional hat worn by Confucian students during the Joseon Dynasty, and durumagi, or a hanbok overcoat. Then the participants are asked to write their wishes and the names of their family members on a piece of paper, which would first be collected and then burnt during the coming Danoje. A final piece of paper is then given out, which the participants have to hold in between their lips during the process of making the liquor.

Participants for Local 100 tour try making the sacred liquor sinju at Ojuk Hanok Village on Jan. 26. [MINISTRY OF CULTURE, SPORTS AND TOURISM]

“This is the traditional way of making this sacred liquor," Jo Ok-gang, a committee member who guided the Local 100 tour participants last month, said. "Our ancestors held a paper between their lips so that they would keep quiet and calm while making the liquor, and at the same time, to prohibit any spit from going into the drink.”

The six-course meal is also paired with Gangneung makgeolli (Korean rice wine) made by the city's young entrepreneurs. Dishes in the program include gamjatteok, or rice cakes made using potatoes, as Gangneung is famous for the nutritious root crop. But the gamjatteok served here is quite different to gamjatteok elsewhere, and not just due to the fact that they're made using potatoes from the region, Jo says.

“Usually, gamjatteok has a glossy, translucent color because of the starch, but as you can see, this gamjatteok is somewhat blackish in color,” Jo said. “This is because we ferment the potatoes to give it a unique pungent flavor.”

After getting the kitchen set up inside the Ojuk Hanok Village, the committee said it will decide on a price and get the two programs running in the near future.

During the two-day visit to Gangneung, Yu also met with a dozen young entrepreneurs who run businesses in Gangneung and held a meeting to hear how the central government can help their businesses attract more travelers from across the country and the globe. Many of the businesses run by these young entrepreneurs were cafes, which comes as no surprise as the city has a long history of cafe culture and coffee.

Culture Minister Yu In-chon, left, tries a cup of coffee he brewed himself on Jan. 26 at the city’s Bohemian Park I-choo Coffee Factory. [MINISTRY OF CULTURE, SPORTS AND TOURISM]

“As I know, Gangneung has about 900 cafes and 2,000 baristas,” Yu said. “It has the famous Anmok Café Street and is home to the famous Bohemian Park I-choo Coffee Factory and Terarosa. But in order to attract more travelers, we must sit down, like today, with young people who will be leading the future of the region to find out what the central government can do to support them.”

Kakao VX, an affiliate of Kakao Games, decided to join the movement and include the ministry’s Local 100 project in its digital stamp tour application called All That Stamp.

Jang Chi-kook from Kakao VX said that many of these cafes and destinations in Gangneung have great stories to tell, and visitors can read about them in the app before they visit and then collect stamps once they arrive at the spots to exchange for gifts and coupons.

Yu also suggested that Gangneung City more actively promote its beautiful trekking courses.

“Even now, people usually think of Gangneung as a place to go during summer for the beach, but it’s actually a great place to visit all year round,” Yu said. “It’s certainly great during the summer, it has fun festivals during spring, and the trekking courses are great to visit during all four seasons. It also appeals to foreigners.”

Gangneung Bau-gil Section 5 is one trail that should be “tried by everyone,” Yu says, “as you can enjoy both the beach and the pine forest — the two beautiful landscapes that form Gangneung.”

The Section 5 course begins at Anmok Beach and goes along the coast, past tourist attractions such as Sacheonjin-ri Coastal Park, Gyeongpo Lake, and Heo Gyun and Heo Nanseolheon Memorial Park. It’s about 7.26 kilometers (4.51 miles) and takes about two hours.

The trekking course is also included in KakaoVX’s All That Stamp.

"There are 15 million trekkers in Korea, but they're just focused on moving forward instead of looking around and enjoying the neighborhood, the culture or the food of the town they spent many hours to visit,” KakaoVX's Jang said. “We hope the application encourages many travelers to take the time to look around and enjoy the culture of the region.”

Jo said his team is currently developing an English version of the app.

BY YIM SEUNG-HYE [yim.seunghye@joongang.co.kr]