Today, thousands of tourists come to visit the quirky settlement -- much to the annoyance of some residents.

Buim Ulmer's latest meeting about the Oktoberfest ran longer than planned. It will be the third time that she and her neighbors host a local version of the notorious beer-swilling fest, and this time the party could exceed all of their expectations.

During their first Oktoberfest, she and her friends had 1,000 Bavarian weisswurst (white veal sausages) and all went smoothly. Then, last fall some 30,000 sausages were sold.

"We never had imagined such crowds," said the 65-year-old nurse. "We were stretched to our limits." That is not surprising. It is hard to cater to the demand for Bavarian specialties when you are in a small village near the South Korean coast.

Buim is South Korean. She and her husband, Ulrich, 64, a German elementary school teacher from the city of Bielefeld, spend most of their time on Namhae, an island of tranquility not far from South Korea's second largest city of Busan in the southern part of the country.

The Ulmers live in the "German Village." And the place lives up to its name. It has whitewashed houses, red-tiled roofs, neat gardens and rows of shoes lined up outside the front doors. Between signs for "Heidi House" and "Hamburg House" stands a road sign limiting drivers to 30 kilometers per hour (19 mph).

The Ulmers' neighbor, a butcher, stocks German smoked sausages and bratwurst. Near the entrance to the village there is the Café Bremen, named after Germany's northern port city. The only things missing from this archetypal German village are the traditional garden gnomes -- apparently they got stolen too often.

The atmosphere is particularly tense during the summer. Traffic backs up the whole mountain and along their narrow streets, as tens of thousands of curious South Koreans descend on their settlement.