Hadong panda stamp zone at Hwagae Market — to November 2026

The Korea Tourism Organization and Everland's joint campaign Rui & Hui's Every Corner of Korea (루이·후이의 대한민국 구석구석) has chosen Hadong in Gyeongsangnam-do for its Gyeongsang chapter. The Hadong travel article that VisitKorea published on 14 September 2026 opens with the fact that the bamboo the twin giant pandas Rui Bao and Hui Bao (루이바오·후이바오) eat every day is cut in Hadong's Hwagae valley, and then strings together a tea-field village, a national park visitor centre, a market and an ecology museum into one route. The twins return to China this winter, so this is their last tour of the country, and for anyone collecting stamps an autumn trip to Hadong has become the one not to miss.

What the campaign is, and why Hadong

Rui & Hui's Every Corner of Korea covers one region a month, wrapping local sights and festivals into a travel story about the panda twins. Everland opened the stamp tour first, on 19 June 2026 in Gochang, and on 9 July the two organisations signed a partnership at the Korea Tourism Organization's head office in Wonju, after which the same stories began running on VisitKorea's web, app and social channels and on Everland's YouTube channel PPuBBa TV. The order is Jeolla in July, Chungcheong in August, Jeju in September, Gyeongsang in October, Gangwon in November and Seoul and Gyeonggi in December. By that schedule Hadong belongs to October, but the VisitKorea article went up on 14 September and was revised once, on 1 October.

Hadong was picked for its bamboo. According to the VisitKorea article, the variety Rui Bao and Hui Bao eat most readily, seoljuk (설죽), is cut by the Hadong forestry cooperative from among the tea fields and woods around Hwagae. The Hwagae valley is foggy, humid and has wide swings between day and night temperatures, which tea bushes like; bamboo also wants plenty of rain and well-drained slopes, which is why tea fields and bamboo groves sit side by side here. Daily quantities, such as how much is supplied and how much the pandas eat, appear only in that one article, so we have not repeated them.

Where to stamp, and how many you need

The Hadong stamp zone is in front of the tourist information office at Hwagae Market. The VisitKorea article says a panda figure selling dried persimmons and straw sandals stands next to it, so look for the panda at the market entrance. How to take part is set by Everland: buy the Rui & Hui companion plush at Everland and you receive a Korea travel-map leaflet and a small travel flag with it, and you stamp that leaflet at each region's stamp zone. Neither organisation's announcements describe any way to take part without the plush.

The Hadong limited goods are Hui dressed as a pedlar, modelled on the stone pedlar statue at the market entrance, and Rui in the robes of a Ssanggyesa temple stay. The same two plush figures, Rui holding prayer beads and Hui with a pack on his back, appear on VisitKorea's event banner. When and where the Hadong goods go on sale has not been confirmed in any official announcement.

The four stops: where they are, when they open, what they cost

VisitKorea's suggested order is Jeonggeum Village → Jirisan National Park Hwagae Visitor Center → Hwagae Market → Jirisan Ecology Science Museum. The first three sit in one valley along the Hwagae stream; only the museum is in Akyang-myeon, further down the Seomjingang River. Addresses, hours and fees for all four were re-checked on the Hadong county, Korea National Park Service and museum websites.

Jeonggeum Village is where tea fields planted along the contour lines of the slope run between the houses and the woods; the Jeonggeumjeong pavilion stands at the highest point of the Jeonggeum tea field, which is managed by the Hadong tea growers' association. The Hwagae Visitor Center has a relief model of the Jirisan ridges and a photo spot with a replica of the Cheonwangbong summit stone on the ground floor, an indoor walkway modelled on the Simni cherry-blossom road and a lounge screening footage of Bulil Falls upstairs, and a picnic area and a native-plant nursery outside. Jirisan was designated Korea's first national park on 29 December 1967 and spans three provinces (Gyeongnam, Jeonnam and Jeonbuk) and five cities and counties.

Hwagae Market stands where the water from Jirisan meets the Seomjingang River. Until Korea's liberation in 1945 it was one of the country's best-known markets, and it is the setting of Kim Dong-ri's novel Yeongma (역마). Today it is a tourist market open every day, so medicinal herbs, dried wild greens, green tea and freshwater clams are always on the stalls, and the restaurants in the back lanes serve clam soup and freshwater-crab stew. The Jirisan Ecology Science Museum is a hands-on museum for a half day with children: an insect specimen room and activity room on the ground floor, an ecology hall upstairs with mounted Asiatic black bears and vultures, a children's library looking onto the Seomjingang, and an outdoor butterfly house.

Rui's temple-stay outfit: what Ssanggyesa is

In the Hadong chapter Rui wears the robes of a Ssanggyesa temple stay. Ssanggyesa Temple (쌍계사) is not one of the four official stops, but it is a little further up the same valley from Jeonggeum Village and the visitor centre, and the VisitKorea article itself suggests it in the travel tips for Jeonggeum Village. The photographs below, from the Korea National Park Service and EBS, show the temple and its surroundings.

What season you will find if you go now

What remains of the stamp tour falls in autumn and early winter. The two photographs below were taken by the Korea National Park Service in October and November respectively, and show the kind of scenery the Hwagae area offers in the two months left. Both are from past years, so this year's timing may differ.

The comment event you can join without going to Hadong

Below VisitKorea's Hadong article, a comment event called "What is your one pick in Hadong?" runs from 1 to 11 October 2026. Leave a comment naming your favourite place in Hadong, or a trip report, and you go into a draw for a Rui & Hui plush key holder. Taking part needs a login on the Korean-language VisitKorea site, and the entry form asks for a name and a Korean mobile number (the prefix menu offers only 010 and the older Korean prefixes) for prize delivery, so in practice this is for people living in Korea.

Getting to Hwagae, and what to expect without Korean

Hwagae has no railway station; the way in is by intercity bus. From Seoul, buses to Hadong leave Seoul Nambu Terminal (Nambu Bus Terminal station, Line 3) and stop at Hwagae on the way, roughly three and a half hours out; from Busan, buses from Busan Seobu (Sasang) Terminal reach Hwagae in about two hours forty minutes. Hwagae Market is a few minutes on foot from the Hwagae bus stop, and Jeonggeum Village and the visitor centre are a short taxi ride up the valley from there. The science museum in Akyang is a drive back down the river; local buses between the two are infrequent, so budget for a taxi. Tickets can be bought at the terminal counters on the day; check the timetable before you go, as departures are hourly or less. Signs for the market, the temple and the trails carry English place names, and the Korea Travel Hotline on 1330 (+82-2-1330) can answer questions in English. The exhibition panels at the visitor centre and the science museum are Korean only, as is the stamp leaflet; the stamp itself needs no reading, and the visitor centre's photo spots and the museum's butterfly house and library work without any. Nothing on the route needs a reservation, a Korean phone number or a Korean card. The plush that comes with the leaflet is sold at Everland, so if you want the Hadong stamp you need to visit Everland before Hadong, not after.