Our Hometown, Tongyeong, Korea

Tongyeong is one of the most beautiful harbor cities in South Korea. The city is nestled around many floating islands and famous with their abundant seafood.

Tongyeong, South Korea

Hello there! Have we gone too long? We are so sorry that it took so long to be back, but boy! What a summer we had! First of all, we traveled to Korea to visit our hometown. Then, our family had to cross the pacific ocean again to relocate onto a tropical land in SE Asia. Where? well, we will let you know in our next post. It always takes some time to settle into a new place no matter where you go. We finally was able to put our family onto a routine so that we can come back to blogging.

We would like to introduce our lovely hometown, Tongyeong city, of South Korea.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

We used to walk along this road everyday to go to school. It has changed so much since we left some 20+ years ago.

Fishing is the major industry in this town.

Some random kiddos goofing around 6am in the morning on Nam-mang hill park.

Painted walls in Dongpirang hill(동피랑). Every house has whimsical paintings on their walls.

The same random kids following us everywhere we go.

Do you speak Korean? Try to read this! So funny!
Such a strong southern Korean accent, they had to put translation on the bottom. Of course we understand the whole thing. In fact we used to talk like that.

This angel looks just like our daughter.

Is this a front door of our house? Just kidding!
It’s a entrance of the memorial house of Admiral Lee; the most respected general in Korean history.

That’s him!

5 seconds of Korean history

If England has Admiral Lord Nelson who brought victory from the battle of Trafalgar, Admiral lee and his world’s 1st iron boat saved Korea from the Japanese invasion in 16th century. The winning battle happened in the ocean near our hometown.

Old-style Korean architectural details are found everywhere.

We love Korean doors.

The bamboo and the cascading walls remind us of the back yard of our grandparent’s house.

The colors of Korea – we call it Dan-Cheong (단청). You will find these colorful architectural pattern in many Buddhist temples and palaces all over in Korea.

Tongyeong is famous for their seafood. This is the central seafood market that we used to pass by everyday on our way to school.

The most famous seafood out of all from Tongyeong has to be these dried anchovies – myulchi (멸치). Cleaning the fish for her customer, she tried to wink at us as we took her photo. People are humorous and sweet in the south.

A lady ripping out the skin of eels. Our kids freaked out about this.

Visors are well beloved among many Korean ladies. It’s to protect their skin from the harsh sunlight.

This is one of a keeper fish stews we ever had in our life. One of our mother’s friends runs a seafood restaurant and this was the dish she served. We finished 2 bowls of rice with this stew. Soooo good!

This is the fish in the stew,; belt fish called “galchi (갈치)”. You can tell it is from Korean ocean judging from the shiny silver color.

Our mother carrying some dried sea products. Of course they are all for us to take back to U.S.

Why is she holding an umbrella in a sunny day? That is her secret to maintain a beautiful skin.

Another famous thing in Tongyeong is the handcrafted furniture called Jagae (자개).
This man is a master artist in Korean handicraft. He uses Avalon shells to create beautiful furniture pieces. He kindly welcomed our visit to his studio and taught our kids about his work.

Our kids learned how to inlay the Avalon thread into motif.

The master himself was working on his project, a jewelry box. We asked him how much the jewelry box he was working on. He looked at us and said, “we don’t think you can afford it”. We told him that we would decide whether we can afford it or not. He smiled and saying, “This will sell for US $5,000”.

Well, we told him immediately that we couldn’t afford it.

This twin chest will run up to $100,000.
It will take the artisan one year to complete.

Another famous handicraft of Tongyeong is these quilted bags. They run from $30-150.

This is Tongyeong style kimbap. In modern day, we call it Chungmu Kimbap. We can eat this every day.

Plain rice wrapped with dried seaweed and served with spicy squid, fish cakes, and radish kimchi.
A must-eat when you visit Tong-Young. We share a recipe on how to make this savory seaweed rice rolls so check it out if you are interested to know more about.

We also had a boat ride to nearby islands. Our kids were sharing their shrimp crackers with seagulls.

There are so many tiny islands nearby and the scenery is breathtaking! This one has a lighthouse on the top.

So how do you think? Would you like to visit Tongyeong next time you go to Korea?
After posting this, we feel like we should get a job with Korea tourism board. Ha ha!