DATE : 2015-10-30
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ASEAN Recreation Forest opens in November: featuring ASEAN Culture
A specially designed recreational forest where you can enjoy cultural experience of ASEAN member states is expected to open in November at Gisan-ri, Baekseok-eup, Yangju-si, Gyeonggi Province, according to Shin Won Sop, Minister of the Korea Forest Service.
The National ASEAN Recreation Forest offers traditional houses of ASEAN countries as the main attraction in addition to typical features of forest recreation.
The official opening ceremony of the ASEAN forest was hosted the Korea Forest Service on October 29 and participated by distinguished guests including ambassadors of ten ASEAN member states to Korea, Deputy Minister of the Korea Forest Service KIM Yongha, officers from the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, multicultural families and local communities. ASEAN member countries are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam in alphabetical order.
Since the first shovel for the construction in 2012, it took four years to establish this ASEAN Forest with the total budget, 8 billion KRW. There are 14 forest cabins with 24 rooms in total reproducing the traditional housing styles of the ten countries. A visitor center built up in the traditional Korean housing style welcomes visitors to the Forest, and a multi-purpose plaza and walking paths lay around.
Reservations can be made at the website of KFS National Recreation Forest Management Office (http://www.huyang.go.kr). In pursuing the objectives of this ASEAN Forest, visits of multicultural families are encouraged at the early stage. Reservations can be accepted in the following priority order only until the early half of 2016; from the first to the 14th of each month multicultural families are given priority reservation and then general reservations can be applied for the remaining rooms from the 15th to the end.
* Prioritized individuals from the ten countries can make a reservation through the online reservation system. However, until the end of 2015 only telephone reservations (☎031-871-2796) are available and ID documents (passport, alien card, etc.) for their nationalities are required.
* Prioritized groups from the ten countries can apply an official reservation to embassies of their countries in Korea or ASEAN-ROK Center, and application forms with copies of their ID are required.
Director of the National Recreation Forest Management Office, Jeong Yeong-Deok highlighted that this ASEAN Forest will serve as a great arena to promote cultural exchanges and bilateral cooperation. As a natural recreation facility it will also help console multicultural families who feel nostalgic and provide visitors with cultural experiences. To that end, he ensured that the Office will make its continued commitment to provide high quality services in forest recreation.