14 November 2025
On this relatively short trip to South Korea, I chose to include Jeonju in my itinerary. Jeonju has the largest hanok village in Korea and is deeply tied to Korea's Joseon Dynasty. Jeonju was the ancestral home of the Yi clan, the family of King Taejo (Yi Seong-gye), who founded the Joseon Dynasty, making it a significant place for the royal lineage. Many historical k-dramas featuring stories in the Joseon era were filmed in this city.
Jeonju is also a city with plenty of food tradition. Bibimbap, one of the most representative food of Korea, was born out of Jeonju and the region of Jeollado-province, where the city is located. Since we appreciate good food, we made it a point to research where are the places serving the best local cuisine.
While Jeonju could be visited as a day-trip from Seoul, we planned to stay a couple of days in a hanok located within Jeonju Hanok Village. We cannot come to Jeonju Hanok Village and not experience a stay in a traditional hanok.
Getting to Jeonju from the airport.
The distance between Incheon International Airport (ICN) and Jeonju city is about 242 km and we took the limousine bus from the airport to Jeonju. The trip should take slightly over 3 hours. Due to some miscommunication at the airport, we spend additional 2 hours of travel time. Read about our little boo-boo here.
We arrived at about 1 PM at the Jeonju Intercity Bus Terminal. From the bus terminal, it was easy to get a short 15 minutes taxi ride (cost 6,300 KRW) to our hanok.
Where we stayed in Jeonju
We chose to stay for 2 nights in Star Rest Hanok. It is a charming, traditional Korean guesthouse located on the southern edge of the famous Jeonju Hanok Village. More about our stay at Star Rest Hanok is in this separate post.
Lunch at Veteran Kalguksu (베테랑)
We had a late lunch at Veteran Kalguksu restaurant. This is a popular restaurant, operating since 1977, serving cheap and good food. It is known for its signature hot, savory knife-cut noodle soup with a rich, eggy broth, perilla seed, and seaweed.
Even though it was past the lunch hour, the restaurant was packed but we were offered a table immediately.
Their menu had hot kalguksu noodles (kalguksu), cold spicy noodles (Jjolmyeon) and dumplings (mandu) with either pork or kimchi fillings. We ordered the hot noodles and dumplings.
Enjoy a walk through the hanok village and the autumn leaves!
After lunch, we took a walk down the main street to the Gyeonggijeon Shrine. This place houses the portrait of King Taejo, founder of the Joseon dynasty. We planned to visit the shrine and the Portrait Museum on Day 2, so we just enjoyed views of the beautiful gingko trees outside the shrine and in the rest of the village.
We were glad that we came at almost the right time to enjoy the peak of the autumn foliage.
Many visitors to Jeonju Hanok Village, both male and female, were dressed in traditional clothes and hanboks. The whole place looked like the set of a period k-drama. In fact, many k-dramas filmed within the hanok village.
Omokdae and Imokdae
After a mini-photo shoot outside the Gyeonggijeon Shrine, we went to Omokdae for the overview of Jeonju Hanok Village. Omokdae is a historical site located on top of a steep hill but the walk up to the site was easy and pleasant.
Omokdae is one of the places where Yi Seong-gye, who later became King Taejo, threw a party to celebrate his victory from a war against the Japanese army in 1380.
Typical Korean architecture.
Beside the beautiful pavilion and appreciating the historical significance of this site, visitors could also capture photographs of the roofs of the hanoks below.
There is a pedestrian bridge nearby that leads from Omokdae to the Imokdae Historic Site, situated at the edge of the Jaman Mural Village. We did not go to Imokdae, only viewing it from a distance.
Jaman Mural Village (자만벽화마을)
The Jaman Mural Village is a colorful village filled with murals along its walls. This is a residential area so we made it a point to speak softly and just enjoy the murals of nostalgic anime characters, celebrities, fairytale scenes, floral patterns, and creative local art.
The village is located on the side of a mountain so there are many narrow alleys that goes up and down within this village.
Entering from Omokdae meant we are entering the village from the top end which made our exploration a little easier since we are walking mostly downwards.
Here are some of the murals that we found interesting.
Spot the celebrities. 
A good place to stop for a break was at this beautifully decorated cafe, with an ET character inside.
Initially we sat on a terrace outside to enjoy the views of the landscape. We could see trees with leaves turning red and orange and also a couple of trees with no leaves but laden with ripe, orange-coloured persimmons in the village.
Later on, we moved inside the cafe to enjoy the ambience of the beautifully decorated sitting area with lots of toys and paintings on the walls.
The cafe is located somewhat in the mid-level of the mural village. There are still plenty of murals to enjoy after our break.
Here are more murals that we saw on our way down to the “entrance” of the Jaman Mural Village.
Overall, Jaman Mural Village is a nice place to visit for photos and chilling at a cafe.
Hanbyeokgul Tunnel - filming location of k-drama Twenty-Five Twenty-One
The sun was beginning to set when we went to see the Hanbyeokgul Tunnel, located a short walk from the Jaman Mural Village. This tunnel gained fame as a filming location for the popular series "Twenty-Five Twenty-One" and since we are k-drama fans, this place is worth a visit.
Even for non k-drama fans, this tunnel is worth a visit. This historic horseshoe-shaped tunnel was actually built during the Japanese colonial period (1929-1931) as a railway tunnel and is located near to some scenic spots, Hanbyeokdang Pavilion and the Jeonju Natural Ecology Museum.
It was good we visited at dusk so the lights in the tunnel were turned on.
The tunnel is still actively in used, so we had to look out for vehicular traffic while taking our photos. The road to the tunnel is narrow, so the occasional cars that used the tunnel were all going at a slow speed. So, generally it was quite safe to set up our camera on a tripod for a photo.
The tunnel is located near the Jeonjucheon stream that flows on the south side of the hanok village.
Located just above the Hanbyeokgul Tunnel is the Hanbyeokdang Pavilion. Historically, it seems that this was a popular spot for Joseon Dynasty scholars to compose poetry, paint, and contemplate the landscape.
We also found the house used by the main female lead in the "Twenty-Five Twenty-One" k-drama. Google Map location here. Address is 5-19 Omokdae-gil.
My wife could remember the many times the female lead Na-Hee-do (played by actress Kim Tae-ri in this drama) ran up and down these steps.
Bibimbap Dinner at Hankook Jib
Our dinner was at Hankook Jib as recommended by the hanok owner. This restaurant was actually one of the restaurants I had shortlisted for eating the bibimbap.
Bibimbap is a Korean dish with rice and various toppings including different kinds of vegetables and sometimes raw beef (yukhoe) and raw egg yolk.
We tried the Jeonju bibimbap and yukhoe bibimbap.
Hot Korean red pepper paste (gochujang) is added to taste. All needs to be mixed well before eating.
They both looked and tasted quite similar after mixing, which indicates that the seasoning for the raw beef was not so strong.
Since we wanted to try the local cuisine, we also ordered the moju (literally “mother's wine”) which is a Jeonju makgeolli (rice wine) with medicinal herbs like jujube, ginger and cinnamon.
The muddy coloured moju tasted sweet, with a slightly tangy taste from the ginger and cinnamon. It was easy to drink and had a very low alcohol level, typically 1.5% or less.
After dinner, the walk back to our hanok was quite chilly. We stopped by a PNB store to briefly escape the cold and buy their famous choco-pie. PNB is supposed to be the originator of this iconic Jeonju dessert.
There are many flavours to choose from. We bought the classic flavour to try. The staff told us the pies must be eaten within a few days, so we did not buy them as souvenirs to bring home.
Jeondong Cathedral is located near the entrance to the Jeonju Hanok Village. The cathedral is built on the site where martyrs were executed in the Joseon Dynasty. We will learn more about the history behind this western-looking building in the traditional Korean village the next day.
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