This FAM tour invited photographers, travel writers, reporters to a briefing sessions to promote local tourist attractions and travel products. Participants of the tour were Danish, an Indian who studied in Korea, Tania, from Timor Leste, Han, from Vietnam, and Hong Gyeong-seok, an honorary reporter based in Daejeon. Walkinto Korea's Japanese language reporter Kim Yeon-hee and CEO Kang Dea-hoon also participated.
The tour group gathered at the travel lounge operated by the Daejeon Metropolitan City Tourism Association and shared the purpose, significance, and schedule of this event.
The first place we visited was the Korea Institute of HYO Culture Promotion Center and Ppuri Park in Sanseong-dong, Daejeon. Ppuri park is a unique park in the world with a surname theme. At here, 244 monuments for each surname are designed with different sculptures as well as are created in various shapes. Mr. Lee Ki-jeon, CEO of Daejeon’s largest community ‘Daejeon Love, Daejeon Blues’, was the one who gave us a guide to Sanseong-dong village.
After the first location, we visited ‘Sanseong Children’s Library’. This library specifically has AR/VR experiential reading content, a play creation space, and provides child-centered reading services. It consists of an open complex space with an English resource room and book cafe-type reading space on the first floor, a children's area on the second floor, and the third floor.
At this event, Tania, an international student from Timor Leste, stated, “I am so jealous of the residents in Daejeon City, where they all have those fully equipped like this for children and parents. I wish I had a facility like this back in my home country”.
After the library visit, we stopped at Sanseong Village Museum. At here, we was told with the stoy of Director Kim Joo-hyun. She did not want to throw away the various items that her mother, who also was her role model, had used during her lifetime. So she donated paintings drawn by his disciples, focusing on the inherited cabinets, kitchen utensils and props, and made them like a family museum.
The next location was <Our Sake Brewery Lee Ho-sang>. Coincidentally, our alcohol master Lee Ho-Sang, who was making Bokbunja makgeolli, challenged our Indian student, Danish, to try extracting the liquor. Danish immediately carried out the task successfully and could carry home the alcohol he made as a gift.
Our final destination was Sanseong Ppuri Traditional Market. Korea’s traditional markets, where people can experience the beauty of the traditional culture, are always the most attractive places for foreign tourists. We ended up choosing our favorite rice cakes at Yesan Rice Cake House. We hope that in the future, following globalization, market products can be labeled in foreign languages to create a wider market.
As the day gets dark, the market reaches its peak. We entered Gajaeul Restaurant, a Sanseong-dong famous restaurant. The dinner was filled with Korean-style Pork belly, soybean paste soup, and hot steamed eggs. These dishes were all famous Korean dishes not only in Korea but foreigners coming to Korea have to try them.
CEO Kang Dea-hoon, who organized this familiarization tour, expressed his aspirations, “Not only in the fancy city center where cultural and commercial facilities are concentrated, but the areas outside the city center are also places of life where citizens live and engage in economic activities. We need to resource the realistic lives of city residents, not just tourism centered on well-developed regions and good facilities. Large-scale art and museums are great, but a trip to a village where you can see the kitchens and living rooms of ordinary people also has potential as a tourist product. When we travel to Europe or Japan, aren’t we also moved by the villages and streets outside the city center? We will continue to work harder to promote our culture, industry, and city with foreigners”.
