We never visit Korea in summer time and this summer Korea comes into our mind when we are planning a trip to Hoikkaido, transit in Seoul. It sounds funny as we are travelling short haul with a transit flight. The thing is we are curious what Korea offer in summer and plan a stop there.
It was a hot mid – July in Korea. We love fruit and plan to visit a farm in Korea, as we were without luck in hoikkaido, unable to Visit a fruit farm due to the bad weather there early July this year. Mini watermelon comes into our mind as it seems to be the fruit in season.
Watermelon in Korea is expensive but very tasty. They are juicy and favourable and particularly suit the palette of people who don’t like the “sandy texture” of watermelon from local market.
We searched a long time online for a watermelon farm and finally read a Korea newspaper article with the contact of Korea mini melon farm. We made a call to them and they are welcoming. We took a KTX from Seoul to Nonsan for around 2 hours, from Nonsan we took a taxi for around 10 minutes to the farm.
The farm is consisting of several greenhouses and are situated next to a car road. We walked inside the farm and quickly realize this is not a tourist farm, it is a real farm. Nobody was there except the owner couples and few neighbours. The owner show us to the greenhouses. First time did our family see how watermelon was grown. It is a watermelon world. All stage of watermelon were into our eyes. Some are growing on the ground, some are hanging up on the greenhouses ceiling, some are really tiny one like marble, some are still in yellow flowers. We paid around 10000 won for picking two mini watermelon for each of us. Free samples were offered by the kind owner to us. Normal size melon taste better than these mini one, but its an experience for us to brag about we went to a farm to pick watermelon ourselves.
The neighbours are very eager to introduce us what to see around in nonsan, as the melon picking experience last for an hour only. We were in good luck that there was a Lotus Flower festival in the town next to Nonsam, Buyeo during or time of visit. It sounds is the biggest festival in this middle part of Korea, which the neighbours said one shall not miss. There we go by taking a taxi. It was a 30 minutes trip to Buyeo from Nonsan.
Buyeo seems to be very busy because of the festival. Many people were in the street and cars are not allowed to get near the park entrance where the festival was held. This is really a popular festival.
The festival is annually and held inside a artificial pond build ages ago by Bakjae Dynasty, one of the three countries which conquered Korea Peninsular in the past. The pond is very famous for the lotus flower. We were not disappointed at all. The park is big and the lotus flowers are big too. The lotus leaves are big enough for someone to stand on.The whole pond is full of beautiful lotus flower.
There are many shops selling local products. We bought some yummy lotus seed paste cake. There are shops selling local farmed blueberries, lotus lantern making workshops. I really wish we could bought some lotus flower seeds from one of the stall. If we were living in Korea, we could have plant the big lotus at our home with these seeds.
Apart from the pond, there are a field with sunflowers. It was a sunny day and Sun Flowers are at it’s best shape.
There was a pavilion in the middle of another pond. The pavilion is beautifully lying on the pond. Many stalls and acitivies are surrounding the pond making it a major activity site. There was quenching Korean watermelon punch offering to visitors for free. This is the first time we tried the watermelon punch and we heard this is one of the popular ways how Korean cool themselves down in Summer. We love this punch, it’s not artificially sweet. The punch is so natural and effectivly quench us. The punch is made of soda, watermelon chunks, blueberries and some coco jelly. The punch is mixed in a huge wok. Helpers are mixing the quench and hand out big bowl of punch to anyone pass by. It’s really a generous act.
There are intercity bus going from Buyeo to seoul. You can buy the deluxe bus ticket, where the seats offered in these deluxe big are like big single seated sofas.
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