Yeohangga / 여행가

Yeohangga is a guesthouse owned and run by a woman who majored in early childhood education and who has been teaching children for over 20 years. The name means "A home for a happy trip," she says. It’s a unique guesthouse since the owner offers various traditional educational games. The cozy and comfortable guesthouse is a traditional Korean house built in March 2013 at a site where an old house used to be. The main building and detached building are divided by the ridge of the roof with beautiful rafters. There is another meaning to the name of the guesthouse: "a house where the woman is happy." She named it as such for a good reason. She used to live in Seoul when her parents advised her to move to Jeonju and run a guesthouse, leaving her husband and child behind. At first, she considered accepting only female guests, but it wasn't an option since most of the people visiting Jeonju are couples and groups of friends. Instead, she made sure the guesthouse is safe for women while building the house. Many female tourists traveling alone find this a great feature of the guesthouse because they feel safer during their stay. For one, she installed three doors for the rooms (1 transparent door, 1 opaque glass door, and a traditional Korean door). Not only do the guests feel safer; the rooms are also well-insulated thanks to the triple doors. The floors and walls are covered with traditional Korean paper coated with soybean oil, which is very environment-friendly. In the four rooms named “Spring,” “Summer,” “Autumn,” and “Winter,” there are many toys and materials for traditional Korean cognition games, such as “Chilgyo Game,” “Gonu Game,” and “Mabangjin.” It’s very likely that even Koreans have never heard of these games. The owner of the guesthouse chose these games specifically because they are perfect for children to play in a traditional Korean house. She teaches her little guests how to play the games. “Chilgyo Game” involves making a shape with 7 to 20 pieces, whereas “Gonu Game” is similar to the game of Chinese chess. "Mabangjin" is a type of IQ game that involves laying down a total of nine different numbers in three rows and columns so that the sum of the three numbers is identical when added horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Many guests find these games interesting, and the owner of the guesthouse finds joy in teaching these games to as many families as possible. She recently took over another traditional Korean guesthouse called "Samrakheon" near the Jeonju Oriental Medicine Center. It's a stand-alone guesthouse for groups and families, and she uses the place to teach traditional games to more people.