Spring makes us want to go around and breathe in fresh air and celebrate. So that’s what we, the Ladies of The 601 Habit (now known as Philippine Women’s Club), did. We planned and organized a  “Hanbok and Tea Party”.

It was well-received but we can only accommodate 20 attendees due to space limitation at the 지대방 Tea House (changed the venue from Shin Yet Tea House) at Insadong where we had our Tea party/Tea Ceremony Class with 선생님 Kyunghee Park.

We had our Tea Party donning a Hanbok on April 29 which happened to be a very festive weekend here in Seoul especially in the Insadong and Jongno area. We chose this day so we can mingle with the crowd and relish the festive atmosphere. It was the weekend where they close the streets of Jongno for the Annual Lantern Parade. The whole area was filled with celebration.

We started our day at 10am to choose our Hanbok at the Insadonggil Seoul Hanbok along Insadong Culture Street. It’s very near Exit 6 of Angguk Station.

The Hanbok store is new and has a good selection of Hanboks. I love mine!

Best of all, there’s a small garden at the rooftop of the building for your photos.

It was a very interesting demonstration by  선생님 Kyunghee Park. All eyes and ears were on her and we learned very useful skills to make our tea preparation graceful and right. And most of all, how to make our tea taste delicious. Amazing! Time and order of preparation do matter and give us varying results!

I learned the bitter way how to correctly prepare my tea. The first time I did it, I was engrossed in some conversation that more than a minute passed and when I sipped mine, it was really strong and bitter!

지대방 Tea House is also located at the Insadong Culture Street. It’s interiors are very traditional, too so while we were in our Hanbok sipping our carefully prepared tea, we felt transported to an authentic Korean traditional village.

As soon as we were done, all of us had a group photo in front of 지대방 Tea House. And surprise, surprise! – Local and foreign tourists must have found our group fascinating. Cell phone cameras and DSLRs were suddenly busy clicking. It took us some time before we moved on. I think the experience also added some excitement to the ladies.

From지대방 Tea House, we had our Hanbok stroll towards Korean Temple Food Center. We were taught how to make traditional Korean dessert that we had to manually mix with all patience and carefully mold them in a wooden template.

While I kept on eating my share without putting them into molds, I saw all the attendees having fun with theirs. The monk who taught us how to prepare the dessert also prepared another special tea for us. I began to appreciate the ceremony that comes with preparing tea.

We would  like to say thanks to the Korean Food Temple Center for accommodating us on this very busy Saturday. The Jongno festivities was more fun for us personally because of this.

And to the ladies who warmly embraced the idea of a Hanbok and Tea Party, thank you! We hope to see you more in our future activities as Philippine Women’s Club.

For those who emailed and texted that they wanted to join but we weren’t able to accommodate anymore, cheer up! PWC has more activities lined up for the rest of the year.

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