Pottery Shopping in Yeoju

Last Saturday I tagged along with a group of ladies intent on doing some serious pottery shopping. We boarded a bus at 8 am and headed off to the town of Yeoju, which I had previously visited for a festival.

After about 1 1/12 hours, we stopped at our first pottery shop and it was time to pick out some kimchi pots. There were TONS of them, in all shapes and sizes. I brought home a good sized one that we plan to use either for outdoor decor or as a side table in the living room. Lamp stand!

There were shelves upon shelves of pots and vases - so much pottery!!

We hopped back on the bus and headed to a section of town that had a row of shops all along one side of the street. There was, again, so much pottery!!

Need any plates?

How about some painted kimchi pots?

Or how about something just a little bit naughty? Yup, you're seeing correctly...

After filling up a good portion of the bus's storage area, we headed to stop #3:

I loved this wall of vases:

And these just made me laugh...what on Earth? Why??

Our last stop for the day was at the "blue and white store" for, you guessed it, blue and white pottery:

The cool thing about this site was around back. While on the hunt for a public restroom, I stumbled upon their factory area - those are pallets full of pottery waiting to be glazed and painted.

The other cool thing was the machine they used to seal our boxes and attach the plastic straps:

It was so cool, I had to catch a quick video - watch how fast this thing works:

As pretty much everyone wanted to make a purchase at the blue and white, and they were woefully understaffed that day, we had lots of time to wander through the store next door - which ended up being my favorite place of the day. Great deals and such a variety. I snagged a set of the blue samulnori musicians seen in this picture:

We're still not sure what the art piece with three brown balls in the next picture was supposed to be...any guesses?

After a full day, we decided to head for home. I think I managed to have a successful trip...

Here are a few of my treasurers from the day:

One more thing checked off the Korea bucket list...now I just need to find a drum...