1. Three-Color Themed Countryside Experience

Rice-Field Cultivation, Harvesting, and Water Sports: One-Day Visit Program Attracts Families
A hot, sultry summer with a high discomfort index may be draining, but vacation and school holidays will make it fun. If you wonder, “Where can I enjoy a fun and economical summer vacation?”, we recommend you check out the options available in Gyeonggi Province. There is a wide variety of attractions and events waiting for you here. Moreover, the Gyeonggi Tourism Organization has prepared a “Catch Two Pigeons with One Bean” event in which prizes will be awarded to selected tourists who travel to major tourist sites in Gyeonggi and upload photos of the places visited on their homepages. For suggestions for your meaningful summer break, we offer the following thematic snapshots of some of the places worth visiting in Gyeonggi Province.

– What is a freshwater snail? Children are excited by catching freshwater snails. ¨Ï G NewsPlus

There are 66 official experience villages operating in Gyeonggi Province. This number includes the Slow Food Villages, where special agricultural products are served, as well as the farming, fishing, and mountain villages for direct experiences. Among these, the three-color themed countryside experience villages attract our attention. The villages are popular because they are easily accessible for a day¢®?s visit from anywhere in the capital area and are equipped with comprehensive facilities. Ecological Playground: ‘Freshwater snails and Mudfishes are alive and squirming!’ For children accustomed to a concrete urban environment, a rice-field experience in the Ecological Playground is an ideal way to make friends with nature. They forget the passage of time while enjoying a mudslide and mud soccer, and catching mud snails and mudfishes. Baramsae Village in Pyeongtaek City and Seorigol Village in Goyang City are representative places for rice-field cultivation experiences. Jiul Goraeshil Village in Yanpyeong County is famous for the abundant earth and water used to make ceramics as well as for fertile rice paddies (Goraeshil-non) where mudfish-catching and pond-making are part of the rice-paddy experience. Visitors can also make field trips to a mud snail farm and pottery factory where they can participate in pottery making.

Crop Harvesting Experience: “My corn and potatoes taste best”

– Quality time to realize the value of sweat while harvesting familiar farm products by hand ¨Ï G NewsPlus

The early period of school summer vacation coincides with potato and corn harvest season. Gyeonggi Province – with its seaside, mountains, and rice paddies – provides ample opportunities for harvesting experiences. The one-day programs, through which visitors can return home with an armful of harvested vegetables, are especially rewarding. Hidolli Village in Anseong City is a typical agricultural village, surrounded by mountains to the rear and a river in front, where rice paddies that depend solely on rainfall for irrigation and ridge-divided rice fields can still be found. This village, which produces pro-environmental farm products, is renowned for its cleanliness and purity, and visitors can enjoy seasonal produce like corn and potatoes as well as the special dish yeon-kalguksu (handmade noodles). Programs for studying Chinese characters and attending a seodang (village school) are also provided. Omnamu Village in Kumdang is famous for its 500-year-old kalopanax (castor oil tree; omnamu in Korean), which has been officially designated as a protected tree. Here visitors can enjoy kalopanax rice-wine, kalopanax boiled chicken, and kalopanax roast in addition to harvesting ssam (leafy) vegetables and grapes. Splish, Splash, Playing in Water: “Bukcheong water-seller recreation” You cannot let summer go by without playing in water. Enjoy a variety of water sports from classic wading in cool water flowing through a beautiful valley to the Bukcheong water-seller program in which you learn how to use a water pump and water-carrying yoke invented by Korean ancestors. Indeed, in Noseongsan Jeongeojang Village in Susan-ri, Icheon, the Bukcheong water-seller program enables you to experience traditional water-well operation with a pump and water-carrying yoke. There is also quiz program in which participants can win prizes by answering questions about traditional water management methods. Neulhyanggol Village in Jeomdong-myon, Yeoju, is located at the junction of the Namhan River and Cheongmicheon: the sandy beaching stretching along the water¢®?s edge doubles the recreational fun. Cheongmicheon is a knee-deep stream in which children can play safely while catching mudfish and crawfish from the valley and riding bamboo rafts.

– How about soccer on a red-clay field instead of a playground or grass field? ¨Ï G NewsPlus