Andong

I had a very vivid dream last Friday night (probably facilitated by the lack of sleep) that I was late for the train to Andong on Saturday morning and I ended up driving all the way. Since I don't have a car in Korea it is unlikely that this was a premonition of any sort, but I definitely had to run at each possible interval in order to ride the very boring, hunger-inducing 4 hour 17 minute train journey to meet Simon in the south-east of Korea. I guess he wouldn't have been too impressed had I missed the train, either.

Now one thing I must commend Andong for is its particularly helpful tourist information center. Really, it is not so much the center itself that I must commend, but the provision of no less than two maps to help us navigate the optimistically-titled "city". There was a general map with pictures and information about the tourist sites, plus another more-to-scale map of the city center with markings of all potential points of interest (decorative gate, food street, Dunkin Donuts) along with bus times and numbers for all of the surrounding destinations we might have wanted to visit. Very useful.

After checking into our love motel (with a disappointing lack of coloured glow lighting) it was perhaps an indication of Andong's worth as a tourist destination when the bus driver hadn't even heard of the soju museum. It was convenient that he spotted the sign as we drove by so that he could give us door-to-door service, but for a Saturday afternoon we didn't expect the museum to look so decidedly shut. Nevertheless the security guard ushered us in, and even turned on the lights for us to have a look around. Simon contemplated how I managed to ace my science GCSEs as he had to explain the distillation process to me that I'd failed to recall, and I read The Queen's thank you letter after her visit to Andong with momentary patriotism. We figured we weren't going to receive that thimble sized sample of soju at the end of our self-led tour.

So we walked back to the city proper, drank some coffee, and headed out to Jebiwon - "No, it's not a Star Wars character, though this huge rock-carved Amitaba Buddha (Icheon-dong Seokbulsang; admission free; 24hr) does bear a faint resemblance to Jabba the Hutt." [Lonely Planet - sometimes I think I'm too scathing, but for a published book, this definitely is.] Again I'm glad the bus driver told us where to get off, as even when we were let loose in the street there weren't any obvious signs. It was hitting sunset as we arrived so we didn't hang around long to look at the stone Buddha head in the dark (or indeed hike up any hills for better views), and since Simon failed to even mention this excursion in his blog post, it's evident why.

Even though Andong is famous for its meat, we failed to enquire into famous restaurants. The meat we ate that evening (chosen from one of the many restaurants down "Food Street" largely to its close proximity to where we were standing when we decided we were hungry) was good, but whether this was due to the excessive marinade or the actual quality of the cow, we weren't sure.

On Sunday we took a scenic walk by the river 3km out of the city to the folk village. It could have been more pleasant were we not walking by a pavement-less main road, but at least the sun was shining and the way was still adorned by the beautiful reds and yellows of autumn to distract us from the whooshing cars. We detoured by the oldest brick pagoda in Korea underneath the railway line before reaching the village that was reconstructed/relocated due to a dam-induced lake that would destroy all surrounding cultural relics. Apparently KBS do some filming in this village since it looks so authentic, but I also imagine the lack of tourists around makes it a convenient set. Apathy got the better of us as we decided not to take a look around the museum. We took the main road back to Andong, ate dak galbi, drank more coffee, and I'm glad Simon accompanied me home as that wasn't a 4 hour 17 minute train journey I fancied doing alone again.

So to sum up. Andong is famous for its soju, traditional masks and meat. I'd say we failed to really experience any of these things, so I'd say a big congratulations is in order for us. I had really wanted to get to the mask festival earlier this month but I was busy dancing it up at that time, but I'm thinking if I want to go again, that'd be the time of year to do it.