Gwangju(Dong-gu)

This hanok (traditional Korean house) guesthouse is located in a quiet residential area in Sansu-dong, Dong-gu, Gwangju. There are four rooms in total, all with ondol (under-the-floor heating system). Seoseokdae and Jungmeorijae rooms can accommodate up to 4, while Jangbuljae and Ipseokdae rooms have a maximum occupancy of 3. Reservations are made for one guest, and guests under age 5 can stay free of charge. Each room has an attached bathroom and is equipped with a refrigerator. A common washing machine is located in the outer restroom. Breakfast features a pumpkin porridge made by the owner. There are no separate parking spaces in the building, but visitors can use the public parking lot nearby. Traditional cultural programs offered on site include natural dye, rice cake making, hand mirror making with pressed flowers, sweet rice balls/puffs making, succulent plant pot making, candle making, and fan making.


Gwangju(Seo-gu)

Hotel The May, located in Seo-gu, Gwangju, is situated near Gwangju City Hall, attracting many business guests, as well as a cinema, supermarket, hospital and other convenient facilities. In addition, the 5.18 Memorial Park, which displays photos and information about the Gwangju democratization movement of May 18, 1980, is situated right next to the hotel. Visitors are recommended to try Gwangju’s special dishes such as tteokgalbi (grilled short rib patties), yukjeon(beef pancakes), Jeollanam-do-style table d’hote, and hongeo samhap (fermented skate and steamed pork slices served with kimchi).


Gwangju(Seo-gu)

Gwangju Dubai Hotel opened in September 2016. The 13-story building houses 85 rooms of different types such as double, twin rooms, and suites. In all rooms, double beds are king-sized and bathrooms are equipped with a whirlpool bathtub. Each room is decorated uniquely so that visitors can look forward to something new every time they visit. The overall bright and light interior design in white, and the luxurious chandelier and indirect lighting, take the elegance of the hotel to the next level. Valet parking and breakfast are provided without charge; breakfast, which is American buffet with Korean dishes, is served from 7:30 a.m. until 9:30 a.m. All staff members of Dubai Hotel put cleanness and friendliness first to keep the place pleasant and comfortable. From the hotel, it takes about 10 minutes by car to Gwangju Airport; 15 minutes to KTX/SRT Gwangju Songjeong Station; and 10 minutes to U-Square Gwangju Bus Terminal. Kim Daejung Convention Center and 5·18 Memorial Park are close, and Gwangju City Hall is within walking distance. Trips to nearby regions such as Mokpo, Naju, Muan, and Hampyeong are also easy.


Gwangju(Buk-gu)

Gwangju Pyeongchon Village, located north of Mudeungsan Mountain, is a cozy farming village made up of four villages Dongrim, Daman, Woosung, and Dangmoe. The village still has an excellence natural preservation, growing environmental-friendly rice in the fields and Punam stream that runs through the middle of the village houses fireflies and otters. Also the village keeps the tradition of making pottery as the village was the place that made grayish-blue-powdered celadon during the Joseon Dynasty. The village street corner offers visitors to Mudeungsan Mountain a place to rest with Mudol-gil shelter and Bandi-lodging.


Gwangju(Buk-gu)

Gwangju Riverside Eco Park (185,124m²) is divided into themed districts and features a natural observation center, an eco-experience center, and more. In the flower district, visitors can see more than 170,000 kinds of wild flowers including azaleas, forsythia, smile rosebay, roses, royal azaleas and hydrangeas. Visitors may also enjoy the picturesque view of over 3000 kinds of trees including snowbells, quince, Chinese parasol trees, Japanese maples, and Metasequoia trees. At the wetlands district, you may actually see how birds hatch and grow! Since the Eco Park is only 30 minutes away from downtown Gwangju, it is a popular place for citizens during the warmer months. Some of the popular places in the park are the Buyeop Botanical Garden, Waterfront Observatory Deck, and rock garden.


Gwangju(Dong-gu)

Gwangju Folk Museum opened in 1987 as the largest museum operated by a city government in Korea. It was established for the purpose of preserving valuable Korean folk relics and putting them on exhibit to increase the public's cultural awareness of them. The museum displays the rich and colorful lifestyles and folk culture of Korea's southwestern regions including Gwangju and Jeollanam-do. The first floor of the museum displays food, clothing, housing, livelihood, and handicrafts while the second floor showcases folk games, traditional customs and folk religions. The museum also utilizes miniature and diorama displays to recreate scenes from the past.  A total eight videotech systems in the museum allow people to enjoy vivid demonstrations of the region's nine intangible cultural relics.


Gwangju(Dong-gu)

The Jueangjeolli cliffs are rock pillars of various hexagonal shapes that seem as if they were hand carved. The Jusangjeolli cliffs of Mudeungsan Mountain consist of Seoseokdae, Ipseokdae, and Gyubong Rocks formed about 70 million years ago. Ipseokdae and Gyubong Rocks are both of a distinct pillar shape as they have been heavily weathered, and Seoseokdae, which was less weathered, looks like a folding screen. The Neodeolgeong (cluster of rocks), which sit on the mountain slope, were made when stone pillars collapsed. The standing rocks and Neodolgeong have been designated as Natural Monuments due to their rarity and uniqueness.


Gwangju(Buk-gu)

Gwangju Culture & Art Center is located in the northeast of Gwangju-si and includes a range of representative cultural pieces from ancient times to the modern era. The Art Center is affiliated with several museums nearby including the Gwangju National Museum, Jungoe Park, the Municipal Folk Museum, and the Gwangju Museum of Art. The 4,145-pyeong / 13,700 square-meter center consists of a main stage for performance art, 10 practice rooms, 8 electrical rooms, an auditorium with 1,792 seats and over 600 pyeongs / 1,983 square meters of lobby space. The center, as a performance art hall complex, supports all types of art including opera, ballet, modern dance, theater, and Korean traditional opera. It is set amidst the beautiful Unamsan Mountain area and serves as a soothing getaway for urbanites.


Gwangju(Dong-gu)

Gwangju Daein Market first opened as a public market on May, 1959. Visitors and vendors decreased as the nearby station and terminal relocated as a course of urban planning. The market began bustling with people once more when artists began what is called a "bokdeokbang (real estate agency) project" in 2008. Empty stores became artists' workshops and offices, and the market's atmosphere went through a change as well. Night market opens on Fridays and Saturdays of the second and fourth week and offers a variety of integrated programs. Gwangju Daein Market has been recognized as a cultural tourism market since 2013.


Gwangju(Buk-gu)

Gwangju Biennale is an international contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years. Taking place in 2014, the event marks 10th anniversay and will celebrate the importance of being together though the theme of “Burning Down the House (터전을 불태우라).” It will bring together many different people, different times, various roles in arts production, and numerous different positions toward power such as exist  in various social, political, and cultural situations. The biennale consists of an exhibition, several workshops, e-journals, books, and various programs such as residency programs and new commissions. [About the 2014's theme] Burning Down the Houseexplores the process of burning and transformation, a cycle of obliteration and renewal witnessed throughout history. Evident in aesthetics, historical events, and an increasingly rapid course of redundancy and renewal in commercial culture, the Biennale reflects on this process of, often violent, events of destruction or self-destruction―burning the home one occupies―followed by the promise of the new and the hope for change. In the 1930s the critic Walter Benjamin coined the term ‘Tigersprung’ (the tiger’s leap) for a new model of history where the past is activated in and through the present within a culture industry that demands constant renewal. What can the ‘Tigerspung’ mean for today’s ‘tiger economies’ like South Korea in a context where economic and political powers deliver the eternally new of fashionable commodities and industrial progress at the apparent expense of a cultural past? Burning Down the House looks at the spiral of rejection and revitalization that this process implies. The theme highlights the capacity of art to critique the establishment through an exploration that includes the visual, sound, movement and dramatic performance. At the same time, it recognises the possibility and impossibility within art to deal directly and concretely with politics. The energy, the materiality and processes of burning ― the manner in which material is changed and destroyed by flames into the residue of dramatic interventions or remnants of celebrations ― have long informed artistic practice. The transformative powers of fire are central to the way in which this exhibition has been imagined. -Courtesy of Gwangju Biennale Foundation