[One Day 10,000 Steps, One Day 1,000 Characters] Walk, See, Enjoy... The Whole Country is in Festival Mode

Since the effective end of COVID-19, in-person events have been taking place nationwide. Local governments are holding festivals that were non-face-to-face, scaled down, or canceled for three years, providing many opportunities to walk, eat, and enjoy.

The 2023 Suncheon Bay International Garden Expo surpassed 1 million visitors on the 13th, just 12 days after its opening. Achieving 12.5% of its target of 8 million visitors, the expo is expected to exceed 10 million visitors. The large-scale four-season lawn plazas, ‘Ocheon Green Plaza’ and ‘Green Island,’ have become iconic spots of the expo. The ‘Garden Stay,’ where visitors can spend a night in the vast 2 million㎡ garden, offers meals made with seasonal ingredients and meditation experiences. The ‘Kids Garden’ and ‘Sunset Garden,’ which provide a panoramic view of the national garden, are explosively popular among children. Suncheon City expects the expo to generate an economic ripple effect exceeding 1.5 trillion won.

Changnyeong Nakdonggang Canola Flower Complex
Photo by Changnyeong-gun

Starting this weekend, various events will be held across the country. In Changnyeong-gun, Gyeongnam Province, the 18th Changnyeong Nakdong River Canola Flower Festival opened on the 13th and runs until the 16th. The main stage of the festival is the Nakdong River canola flower field in Namji-eup, Changnyeong-gun. Every year, canola seeds are sown here, covering over 1.1 million㎡, from late September to early October. The canola flowers bloomed bright yellow a few days before the festival. The Changnyeong Nakdong River Canola Flower Festival is more charming and famous because it is set against the backdrop of the Nakdong River and the ‘Namji Cheolgyo’ (Namji Iron Bridge), built during the Japanese colonial period and registered as Cultural Heritage No. 145 in Gyeongnam Province. Over 1 million people visit the festival site annually. Changnyeong-gun resumed access to the nationally designated cultural asset (scenic site) ‘Namji Gaebira’ in Namji-eup on the 30th of last month. Gaebira is a cliff path along the Nakdong River in Namji-eup, Changnyeong-gun. It is known that in the past, porters carrying salt and salted fish and local residents used this path. Many trees such as pine and oak harmonize with the old path, and the Nakdong River flows beside it, creating beautiful scenery. In September 2021, the Cultural Heritage Administration designated ‘Changnyeong Namji Gaebira’ in Yongsan-ri and Sinjeon-ri, Namji-eup, Changnyeong-gun, as a nationally designated scenic site. Due to the risk of falling rocks in some sections of Gaebira, Changnyeong-gun restricted access to parts of the path in August last year. After obtaining permission from the Cultural Heritage Administration for changes to the site, Changnyeong-gun installed rockfall prevention nets and warning signs about rockfall risks, and reopened Gaebira to visitors before the festival.

Sancheong-gun Saengcho International Sculpture Park Flower Garden

From the 14th to the 28th, the 4th Sancheong Saengcho International Sculpture Park Flower Moss Festival will be held at the Saengcho International Sculpture Park in Sancheong-gun, Gyeongnam Province. The 25,000㎡ park is in full bloom with vibrant flower moss, giving the impression of standing in an outdoor art museum with a pink carpet. Reflecting the hometown of former Vietnam national football team coach Park Hang-seo, some of the flower moss is shaped like soccer balls, highlighting Saengcho as a football town. This year, to provide new attractions for visitors, more flower moss was planted along embankments and roadsides, turning the entire Saengcho-myeon into a ‘flower paradise.’ At the Sancheong-gun Woodcarving Master Training Center, an exhibition of wooden carvings by Mok-a Banchan Su, a holder of National Intangible Cultural Property No. 108, is on display, along with a weekend wood rubbing experience event.

From the 14th to the 16th, the 3rd Yeongam Wolchulsan Canola Flower Festival will be held around Cheonhwangsa Temple on Wolchulsan Mountain in Yeongam, Jeonnam Province. The canola flower festival features a vast 3.3 million㎡ (1 million pyeong) canola flower field harmonized with the Wolchulsan National Park. The festival organizer, Yeongam Nonghyup, will hold a grand opening ceremony with performances and prize draws, followed by a community health walking event around the Cheonhwangsa canola flower fields.

Citizens visiting the Yeongam Wolchulsan Scenic Complex Canola Flower Festival [Photo by Yeongam County Office]

In Buyeo-gun, Chungnam Province, the ‘2023 Buyeo Cherry Tomato & Canola Flower Festival’ will be held from the 21st to the 23rd at the Geumgang Riverside in Sedo-myeon to promote the local specialty cherry tomatoes. For tourists coming from all over the country, nightscape facilities will be installed and operated at the festival site from the 14th to the 30th. In Sedo-myeon, Buyeo-gun, 380 farms cultivate cherry tomatoes over 280 hectares. In Daegu Dalseong-gun’s Biseulsan Natural Recreation Forest, home to the nation’s largest wild azalea colony, the 27th Biseulsan Wild Azalea Cultural Festival will be held on the 15th and 16th. Every April, many tourists visit Biseulsan to admire the vast 1 million㎡ wild azalea colony.

The 43rd Jindo Mysterious Sea Road Festival will be held from the 20th to the 22nd, starting with a pre-festival event on the 19th at Cheolma Square in Jindo-eup. Known as the modern-day miracle of Moses, the Jindo Mysterious Sea Road became globally famous after Pierre Landy, the French ambassador to Korea in 1975, witnessed the phenomenon during a visit to Jindo and introduced it in a French newspaper. The 27th Biseulsan Wild Azalea Cultural Festival (15th?16th, Daegu Dalseong-gun) also attracts many tourists every April to admire the nation’s largest wild azalea colony spanning 1 million㎡.

Crowds visiting Jindo Mysterious Sea Road
Photo by Jindo County Office

In May, the month of family, the representative prehistoric culture festival in Korea, the Gongju Seokjang-ri Paleolithic Festival, will be held from May 5th to 7th at the Seokjang-ri Museum in Gongju, Chungnam Province, where numerous Paleolithic relics were excavated. Newly introduced this year, the ‘Paleolithic Hunting Pick’ is a program where festival participants can freely run around the lawn using Paleolithic props and tools. At the ‘Paleolithic Food Nation,’ visitors can grill meat skewers, potatoes, and corn over fire, and experience unique activities such as Paleolithic hunter archery and making a bark hut with their families. The Seokjang-ri Museum will also host a special exhibition of world-famous Paleolithic cave paintings under the theme ‘Prehistoric Artists.’

At the Wando Beach Park in Jeonnam, the 3rd Jeonnam Garden Festival will be held under the theme ‘Big Garden Festival, Wando Carnival! unfolding at the spring sea in May.’ The opening ceremony will be held on May 4th, and the exhibits will be displayed from the 1st to the 31st for a month. Wando-gun plans to create gardens reflecting Wando’s unique sentiment, including one representative garden and 12 gardens decorated by 12 towns and townships in the Wando area. The representative garden will feature a garden restaurant inspired by a picnic garden surrounded by flowers and trees.

Other events include the 39th Suanbo Hot Springs Festival (April 14?16, Suanbo Water Park area, Suanbo-myeon, Chungju-si, Chungbuk), the 13th Yeongdeok Mulga Jami Festival (April 28?30, Chuksan Port, Yeongdeok, Gyeongbuk), the Gochang Green Barley Field Festival (April 15?May 7, Hakwon Farm, Gong-eum-myeon, Gochang-gun, Jeonbuk), the 93rd Chunhyang Festival (May 25?29, Gwanghallu Garden area, Namwon, Jeonbuk), the 2023 Pohang Marine Corps Culture Festival (April 29?30, Pohang Marine Corps 1st Division base and Marine Street area, Nam-gu, Ocheon-eup, Pohang), and the 27th Hallasan Clean Bracken Festival (April 29?30, Namwon-eup area, Seogwipo-si, Jeju).