Mushrooms and Trekking

Stupid Tourist Saturday and Sunday!

No rest for weary travelers. After five action packed days in Beijing it was time to return to the Korean tourist routine. We signed up for the Pine Mushroom Festival with Adventure Korea.

The website had advertised the the festival to include such events as horseback riding and bare handed trout fishing. No such luck. Not to put down the Korean sense of fun but the festival was kind of lame. The Rhubarb Festival in Ulm, Montana has nearly as many activities.

So what is a festival? Do we really need to celebrate things like pine mushrooms, rhubarb, chokecherries, or sweet peas? Many festivals are fun but it seems like we should have a better reason to get together and celebrate.
They did have a couple of interesting displays and activities. They had an old fashioned thresher which we could try out with freshly picked rice.

There was also a man demonstrating weaving grass shoes as was traditionally done before modern shoes.

After the festival we were led up to the mountains where we were each allowed to harvest one mushroom as designated by a guide. The mushrooms are supposedly quite expensive and one mushroom may run you $10 US. A kilo of mushrooms is upwards of $300. The pine mushroom is valued for its late season harvest in which it retains a lot of moisture and has a woody aroma. We tried some mushroom soup and then grilled the rest up for dinner. On Sunday, we went trekking. This is were you walk, climb, wade, swim, traverse, jump, balance, ford and hike your way up a river. It was beautiful and fun. We got to cliff jump into a pool of water. I wasn't sure if I'd ever dry out after that adventure. What festivals do you attend?