Korea's November food festivals 2026 — ramyeon, kimchi, seafood and yuja, 6–15 November

Through the second week of November, five towns put their signature food at the centre of a festival. The Gumi Ramyeon Festival turns the old town outside Gumi Station into a street of instant-noodle stalls; the Jukbyeon Port Seafood Festival in Uljin lets you catch live fish bare-handed; Fisherman's Market x Port Village Tongyeong is a food market built on Tongyeong's seafood; the Sanbuk AI Gimjang Festival in Yeoju hands you salted cabbage and seasoning so you can make a year's kimchi and take it home; and the Goheung Yuja Festival is held in the middle of a yuja (Korean citron) orchard. Four of them fall on the first weekend, 6–8 November, and Goheung follows a week later, so we checked each date, price and booking rule against the festival's own website and the VisitKorea festival listing (on 26 October) and put them side by side.

When and where are the five November food festivals?

Goheung runs longest at four days and Sanbuk shortest at two. On the weekend of Saturday 7 – Sunday 8 November all four festivals except Goheung are open at once, so a two-festival trip could pair Gumi and Uljin, both in North Gyeongsang Province, or add Sanbuk in Yeoju, the closest to Seoul, as a day trip.

Gumi Ramyeon Festival 2026: when are the noodle stalls open?

The Gumi Ramyeon Festival runs Friday 6 – Sunday 8 November in the old town along Yeokjeon-ro, right in front of Gumi Station. Gumi is home to an instant-noodle factory, and the festival treats the downtown as one long noodle street; both the festival FAQ and VisitKorea list entry as free. The heart of it is the ramyeon restaurant zone, split into half-portion noodles, unusual noodles, premium and overseas noodles, and noodle trucks. A festival notice dated 13 October gives its hours as 11:00–21:00 on the 6th, 10:00–21:00 on the 7th and 10:00–19:00 on the 8th. There is also a 'soup lab and self-cooking zone' where you mix your own seasoning, and a park lounge to sit down in.

On stage, an SK Broadband 'Sing to You' broadcast is scheduled for 18:30 on the 6th and the 'Raw Ramyeon Stage' for 19:00 on the 7th. Without a car there are two ways in. The Kakao T shuttle, promoted on the festival website, runs seven routes from the Seoul area (Sadang, Seoul and Jamsil stations), Daejeon, Daegu, Busan and Gwangju; according to Gumi City as reported by local press, return fares are KRW 59,000 from Seoul, KRW 45,000 from Busan and KRW 25,000 from Daegu, and each route runs only if enough people sign up. By KTX, get off at Gimcheon-Gumi Station and take the limousine bus into Gumi (every 30–40 minutes, KRW 2,000 cash or KRW 1,900 by transport card).

Last year's numbers show how busy it gets. Gumi City counted about 350,000 visitors over three days in 2025, 40.2% of them from outside Gumi, and 480,000 packs of freshly fried noodles were sold on site. Expect the same this year, which is a reason to come by train or shuttle rather than drive.

Sanbuk AI Gimjang Festival: how much is kimchi-making, and when does booking close?

The Sanbuk AI Gimjang Festival, at Sanbuk Sports Park in Sanbuk-myeon, Yeoju, on Saturday 7 – Sunday 8 November, is a festival where you make kimchi. Cabbage grown in Sanbuk is salted in advance and the seasoning is prepared for you; you mix it in and pack it to take home. Rubber gloves, plastic gloves, hair caps, aprons and packing bags are handed out on site (two people's worth per 10 kg), but you bring your own kimchi container. Entry to the festival ground itself is free according to VisitKorea.

Online booking opened on 8 September and stays open until five days before the festival. Each person can book up to 80 kg; a booking under 40 kg covers up to four people at the table and 40 kg or more up to six. A booking is confirmed only once paid, and it can be cancelled free of charge until five days before. You can also sign up at the festival headquarters desk, but that may close early, and the website suggests coming in the afternoon if you do. Beyond kimchi there is boiled pork (KRW 25,000), blood-sausage-style hangover soup and cabbage-leaf soybean soup (KRW 6,000 each), a family walk, a field-day sports event and laser tag.

The 'AI kimchi-making' that gives the festival its name is described on its website as three booths: a practice room where you follow a master's video with AI voice guidance, a challenge room where AI scores your hand movements and the finished kimchi, and a booth where you operate a cabbage-slicing robot. That line-up appears only on the festival's own site. By public transport, take a taxi from Gonjiam Station (about 25–30 minutes) or Yeoju Station (about 35–40 minutes), both on the Gyeonggang Line; seven temporary car parks with 300 spaces are set up around the site.

Jukbyeon Port Seafood Festival: when is the bare-handed fish catching?

The Jukbyeon Port Seafood Festival takes place Friday 6 – Sunday 8 November around Jukbyeon Port in Jukbyeon-myeon, Uljin. It is organised by the Uljin County Festival Development Committee with support from Uljin County, the county council, the Hanul nuclear power headquarters and the Jukbyeon fisheries cooperative. Uljin County's tourism site says only that the programme has official events, cultural events, hands-on activities and standing side events; VisitKorea lists entry as free. A local paper (Gyeongsang Maeil Sinmun, 26 October) reported that singers including Park Ju-hee, Park Hyun-bin, Park Seo-jin and Na Tae-joo will perform.

What draws people here happens right on the quay. In bare-handed live-fish catching you wade into a tank and grab a fish, and in the on-the-spot seafood auction the catch is sold to the highest bidder; at the 2024 festival both ran on all three days, along with a show in which a large fish is butchered and shared out. In 2024 the opening ceremony, fireworks and fishing-boat parade were on the Saturday evening, but this year's times have not yet been confirmed in an official document.

What can you eat at Fisherman's Market x Port Village Tongyeong?

Fisherman's Market x Port Village Tongyeong runs Friday 6 – Sunday 8 November around the Tongyeong Triathlon Plaza in Donam-dong, 10:00–21:00 daily (last orders 20:00). Tongyeong City hosts it and Food Travel Co. runs it, combining Tongyeong's Fisherman's Market with Port Village, a harbour food event. The festival website lists general food stalls cooking with Tongyeong seafood, performance stalls that cook in front of you, and chef-consulting stalls whose menus were developed with chefs, plus hands-on, pop-up and lifestyle booths and the Tongyeong Seafood Fair. The detailed menu was still marked 'in preparation' on 26 October.

Performers dressed as fishermen roam the grounds in an 'NPC parade' three times a day on all three days: 12:30–14:30, 15:30–17:30 and 18:30–20:30. Temporary parking includes the Tongyeong ferry terminal, the Tongyeong Cable Car and the Tongyeong International Music Hall; the site is close enough to the cable car's lower station that the two fit into one day.

Goheung Yuja Festival 2026: when is it and what is on?

The 6th Goheung Yuja Festival runs Thursday 12 – Sunday 15 November in the yuja orchards around 701-7 Handong-ri, Pungyang-myeon, Goheung. Goheung County hosts it and the county festival committee runs it; this year's theme is 'A Korea without colds' and the slogan 'November autumn is yuja heaven'. The 5th edition (6–9 November 2025) drew some 300,000 people over four days, the largest crowd for any single event in the county.

At 15:00 on opening day, the 12th, 1,004 people make yuja syrup together in the '1004 Yuja' sharing event, and Goheung's 52nd County Day is celebrated at the festival site the same day. Activities run 10:00–17:00 on all four days: making yuja syrup, a yuja bath in warm water with yuja floating in it, tasting yuja ramyeon and yuja rice cake, and picking yuja in the orchard (KRW 10,000). For food there is a local-cuisine hall and a specialty-products market, a 'yuja makgeolli and pork belly party', and a 'yuja feast' menu including yuja gimbap and yuja eel.

Each evening has a different line-up of singers. A drone show and the orchard night performance 'Epic of Fire' (18:00–19:00) also run every night.

Shuttle buses serve the site. One route links the Goheung-eup community centre and Goheung County Office with the festival, 20 runs between 09:00 and 21:40; another links the Pungyang agricultural technology centre with Dangdu stop, 27 runs between 09:00 and 21:20. The Goheung-eup community centre stop (11 Teomineol-gil) is next to Goheung's bus terminal, so you can arrive by intercity bus and change straight onto the shuttle. In a press release, the county's festival committee said this year's edition widens the festival in every direction — sights, food, activities and international links — and adds an exhibition on yuja-growing cities in Korea, China and Japan.

What to check before you set off

• Sanbuk kimchi booking: online booking closes five days before the festival — in practice 2 November for the 7th and 3 November for the 8th — and you bring your own kimchi container.
• Gumi Kakao T shuttle: each route runs only if enough people sign up, so watch for the confirmation after booking.
• Entry versus food: all five list entry as free, but ramyeon, kimchi-making, seafood and yuja picking are paid.
• Schedules still missing: as of 26 October the official sites had not posted this year's Jukbyeon timetable, the Tongyeong menu or Goheung's full schedule. Check again just before opening.

Getting there and what to expect if you do not read Korean

Gumi is the easiest: the festival is in the streets outside Gumi Station, which is served by regular Gyeongbu Line trains from Seoul (not KTX), and from Daegu by the Daegyeong Line commuter rail. KTX passengers change at Gimcheon-Gumi Station for the limousine bus described above. Goheung works by intercity bus to Goheung terminal and the free shuttle beside it. Sanbuk has no bus link on its website — take a taxi from Gonjiam or Yeoju station on the Gyeonggang Line, which starts at Pangyo. Jukbyeon in Uljin and Tongyeong are long trips from Seoul; their official pages give no public-transport route, so plan on the intercity bus to Uljin or Tongyeong and a taxi from the terminal. On the ground, expect Korean only: menus, stage announcements and the kimchi-making instructions are in Korean, and none of the five sites lists English signage or English-language sessions. The two bookings are the catch for visitors. The Sanbuk kimchi reservation is a Korean-language shop on the festival website; if checkout will not take your card, the walk-in desk is the fallback. The Gumi shuttle is booked only inside the Kakao T app, which may ask for a Korean mobile number to sign up.