Hahoe and Andong

Last weekend I got to travel by myself for the first time to Andong, a city in the east central part of Korea. It's famous for the Hahoe (pronounced Ha-hweh) folk village and mask dance. I had planned on leaving Friday night on the last bus there (11pm), but when I got to the bus depot, there were no more seats to Andong, so I got the first bus out the next morning at 6am (managing to do this, by the way, when the bus clerk didn't speak any English). I managed to find a hotel to stay in near the bus depot, and caught the bus on Saturday morning no problem. The trip was only 3 hours, so I got into downtown Andong rather early. I found a cheap hotel to stay in near the bus terminal first, and unloaded my overnight bag. Then I went back to the bus depot to get my ticket for the bus on Sunday, just to make sure I didn't have the same problem again.

I explored a little of downtown Andong and found a tourist information booth, which had the time schedule for the bus to the local tourist destinations, of which there were quite a few. The first place I went, and my main reason for going, was the Hahoe Folk Village ( 하회마을).

Hahoe (pronounced Ha-hweah) is an ancient village that has never been attacked because of it's unique location - it is surrounded by a river on three sides and mountains on the fourth. The buildings are a mix of thatched servants quarters




and upper class homes.


It's beautifully tranquil, and the mountains and homes together makes you feel like you've been transported back in time (if you ignore the odd satellite dish attached to the thatching). I wandered around the village for a few hours, looking at the different architectural styles of the houses, and going to the different national treasure sites (I believe this village houses about 19 of them). National treasures here are mostly buildings owned and lived in by historical Korean officials and heroes.

In my wanderings I came across a small playground, where kids were playing on what we would call a see-saw, except instead of sitting on it, they stand and try to get each other to jump higher, almost like a trampoline.



This village is particularly known for the Hahoe Mask Dance, which is an ancient traditional dance with a lot of cultural significance that has been lost in the touristization (is that a real word?) of it.




I missed the first part of the dance because I didn't know where it was being held, but I got to see most of the first three acts. I got a short video of it that I'll try to upload later (since this post is already a week later than I would have liked).

I headed back into town, intending to visit some of the other places in the area, but I was too tired. So I grabbed dinner at the Mr. Pizza, and wandered around the downtown area. I found a small park with some of the old-style pagodas that were lit up.


I went back the next morning to visit the cliff across the river from the village to get a better view of it,


and got to see a few of the people that lived there actually working on making the masks



as well as other ancient style crafts like calligraphy.


After leaving the village again, I came back to the hotel and got my bags, ready to head home. I decided to stop at a museum I had seen the night before, which was interesting in that it didn't have any physical artifacts, but had interactive videos, games, sounds, etc, all linked to the history and traditions of Andong. It was a very restful and enjoyable weekend, especially since I was alone and was able to do what I wanted, when and where I wanted to.

Manic Monday

On Monday we woke up early and went in search of coffee after deciding to stay in Mokpo for another night and head for Boseong the next day. We had past a few coffee places that were open the night before, but weren't able to find one open at 9am. Most of the places we saw were open at 10am, some were noon. It still amazes me that you can own a coffee place anywhere in the world that isn't open by 7am - at the latest. Regardless, we decided to head over to Yudalsan Park, which was listed in our guidebook and we both had wanted to see. It was between us and the shore, where we wanted to take a boat out to some of the further reaching islands, so it seemed like a good idea to walk through it.

Now, when I think of a park, I think trees, grass, maybe some landscaping and places to sit and have a picnic. This is probably because that describes most of the parks I saw growing up in the flatlands of Florida. When Korea says 'park', you can almost bet that it's actually a mountain. This one happened to be about 600 meters high. This is the walkway up to the park through the city:

We missed the glass botanical gardens, mostly because when we got there it was blazing hot, and we were really just concentrating on getting up the mountain, and not what the guidebook said to look for.

We saw Madangbawi (great views and two rock carvings) and Ildeung, another peak on our way up.

We must have taken the long way around, because it took us about 3-4 hours to get to the other side to the beach. We wanted to take a boat ride out to some of the further flung islands, but the ferries only run twice a day, and we were a good 20 minute walk from the ferry terminal and only had about 3 minutes before it left. So we took a small boat tour in the bay around Yuldusan.

Then we took a bus to the Mokpo Natural History Museum. Aside from a horribly stuffed taxidermy tiger that looked like a third grade sewing project, it was actually a nice museum.

It took us forever to find a place to eat. Most places won't serve just one person -there has to be at least two people - and the first several that we tried were either too expensive, or wouldn't allow us to share a single serving of any dish (even though some of the dishes started at W30,000 each). We decided to head to bed early since we wanted to be in Boseong first thing the next day. We debated about trying to head out anyway and cancel our reservation, but having a place to keep our bags and a shower, as well as not knowing if we'd be able to find a place in Boseong, was worth staying in Mokpo another night.

Once a month

The school takes field trips with the morning classes about once a month. We also go out to dinner, just the teachers and Julie once a month. Today it was both. 

We took a field trip to a light museum, about half an hour from the school. I kept trying to find out details about how the field trips work, but was never really able to get that much information. So aside from not knowing that the kids have partners and walk two by two, I wasn't able to understand the person leading the trip through the museum since she only spoke Korean. This means I couldn't tell when she was asking a question, or when she wanted the kids to be quiet and still, or when she wanted them to move around and touch things. Not only this, but the Korean teachers didn't really seem interested in keeping the kids under control. So the trip started out ok, but about half-way through, the museum had turned into a 3-dimentional walk-through, where the kids were in hospital rooms, classrooms, kitchens and the like, where they were talking about mood lighting, light therapy, etc. So imagine 40 kids in a house, with couches, remotes, bedrooms, kitchens and dining rooms with the table set with fake food, and then a person in a corner trying to talk to everyone.

(This was the first time most of them had seen a real chalk board. And I'm pretty sure most of them don't really know what it is.)

(My lemon class in the little light village that I wouldn't let them run through.)

It took everything in me not to bring everything to a screetching halt and make all the kids sit on their hands and look at the speaker. The only reason I didn't was because I didn't want to interrupt the speaker since I had no idea what she was saying, and I've only been there for two weeks. I did make it absolutely clear to my 6 kids when we got to a place where I could pull them aside that they were to stay with their partners, they were not to run around and their behavior up until now had not been acceptable. And when the other kids were running through the displays when they were supposed to be waiting, mine were sitting quietly on the floor where I could see them. 

After class today, Julie took all of us to dinner. It was absolutely delicious. It was a bit of a walk, but apparently Julie teacher picked it because she knows I don't like spicy food and most of the food was tasty but not spicy. There were about three or four things I couldn't eat, but the rest of it was great. I have no idea how much it cost, but I imagine it was rather expensive, since there were 8 of us, and a lot of food. Afterwards James, Cherita, Gina and I had a beer at a bar down the street from HP and had a rather lively conversation. And then I headed home. All in all a rather interesting day.

They grow their own mushrooms. They're delicious!

My boss, Julie teacher, and the other Korean teachers at the table.

They put beef and about 7 different kinds of mushrooms into this stone pot on the table, and you cook it as you eat. 

And this is what passes for dessert - ice shavings, red beans, fruit, and some sort of powder that you mix up into a slushy type thing.