Address: 256-8, Jwayeon 1-gil, Gaecheon-myeon, Goseong-gun
The entrance to Wolgok Village is up along Yeonhwasan Mountain and a reservoir. A field of dappsari plants turns from green to red in autumn.
To access this area, one must cross a kind of bridge that separates the reservoir from a valley of rice paddies below.
The dappsari plants are a kind of grass that form an oval shape and can grow to around 150 cm in height.
Dappsari plants were used to make cheap brooms, especially in the days before vacuums and technology.
We came to Wolgok Village as a family in mid-September of 2021, when the plants were all green. A large, wooden chair is in the middle of the field to create photo zone.
A nice little walkway along the reservoir’s edge wraps around the dappsari field.
I love being there at sunset when the bushes cast long shadows of the plants.
I have been here three times so far, and it’s always been so quiet and lacking many visitors. It makes this place feel very private and remote. It is actually quite remote. When I was here with my family it felt like we were on a mini vacation or something to enjoy nature.
I returned to Wolgok Village with Noah one month later, and most of the dappsari plants were already brown.
Noah had fun inspecting the bushes.
By now it was almost time for harvesting the rice from the golden paddies.
This is one of the reasons I really enjoy living in the countryside of South Korea rather than a large city. Things seem more intimate.
The building at the edge of the field is a kind of city hall for the village. The large tree has a memorial around it for a Korean independence activist who moved to Japan in 1930 as a 7 year old child but was later kicked out for being Korean. In 1941, he formed an organization in efforts to fight for Korea’s independence. At 18 years old, he was arrested and put in prison by the Japanese.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you could feel a bit of the refreshing atmosphere of this rural place at Wolgok Village.
한국어