Korean Folk Village Park

The next park for us was called Doocoland and its part of a larger Korean Folk Village Park. Wanting to learn the culture as well as visit the parks I was quite looking forward to this place.

A collection of locally grown peppers for us to sample. They weren't that bad.

It was rumoured that they grew pot in this park, I don't think this was what they meant though.

These traditional masks were made to protect the ugly villagers from being picked on by the nicer looking folk. However the plan backfired when the people who did the bullying could easily identify the ugly people as they were the ones wearing the masks.

The park has a large number of authentic looking buildings and has become a popular filming location for movies that want to feature authentic looking buildings. This hoarding is advertising the fact that a TV adaptation of The King and I was being filmed here. Shall we dance (in front of some authentic looking buildings) one, two, three. I can't think of any decent "King and I" puns so 'Yull' have to make do with this one.

Doocolands not so big big wheel.

The rollercoaster wasn't too bad buried in amongst the trees.

More bizarre animals. The one on the left looks like the what you'd end up with a zebra was ever possible to mate with a giraffe. A "gibra" or "Ziraffe" perhaps. The one on the right however does look uncannily like that dog from The Banana Splits.

See!

Beautiful paint job on this "the-concrete-gives-its-age-away" shelter in the centre of the Folk park.

A large centre of the park is put aside for growing crops that Korean farmers would typically harvest. They have the common things such as corn and potatos, but they also grow hemp. Had this park named its coaster after Columbia then I wouldn't have been overly surprised.

Some of the old traditional buildings.

A Korean photographer party baiting ducks with bread and leading them into a paparazzi photo experience.

This is a crazy traditional slack-rope walker who captivated the crowd (most of us are in the shade behind the camera) with his amazing display of rope walking. He could walk, run, hop, bounce, jump, jump on his arse, jump on his arse whilst rotating, all without falling off. It was one of those routines that could be kept very short indeed had he just done his best trick first (a combination of hopping, jumping, sitting, standing, and turning around all at once) but he didn't. He teased us with a simple display of walking first and worked his way up. By the end of the routine I think he'd made some new fans of the audience, which he could use to aid his balance in the future (did you see what I did there?)

Actually the pics don't do the guy justice so here's a clip I found on youtube (is there anything you can't find on there?)

Escaping the crowds, myself and Jeppe had noticed on the map, a shrine tucked away in the trees away from the main park and being the nosey curious tourists that we are we decided to go and check it check check check it out, and very stunning it was too.

Playing with the depth of focus on the camera to get sunflower photo.

The folk village has a haunted house and whilst I'm not sure it's quite traditional (although I'm happy to be proven wrong) it wasn't too bad an attraction. I don't remember being overly scared by it but it was pretty long in length which made it fun. (Having just read this back I've realised that the previous sentence could be easily misconstrued - this was not intentional).

A traditional Korean man, resurrected from an cryogenic sleep on his way to get married in a traditional Korean wedding ceremony. We left the ceremony just before it started sensing that it might be a little bit boring. I think this chap gets married every day at 2pm and has been doing it every day for 200 years. All that consumating (although we don't get to see that) is the reason why he now has to make his way there by horse.

Strange totems in the woods - The Brair Witch Project perhaps. (Apologises profusely). At least these ones have a nice big cheeky grin, not terrifying at all.

I have no idea what these symbolise but I'm sure they're not just the locals putting their washing out to dry.

Doocoland was a silly little park and I only spent 10 minutes in it, if that. Most of the day was spent taking in the traditions of the Korean people and the best part for me was making my way up the mountain (albeit not that far) to see the shrine, which was stunning.

On the way out of the park I decided to buy a souvenir and purchased a traditional fridge magnet. Be careful of the gift-shop the people in there are very pushy for a sale which I wasn't comfortable, but perhaps thats the traditional way of selling things.