Yeongju and Andong Oct 20-21

A group of us from work headed down to Yeongju and Andong for the weekend. They are on more the south-east part of Korea, about a four hour bus ride from Seoul. I saw a Buddhist temple, a Confucian school, a number of bars and a folk village. Just awesome :P A number of pictures are up in my picture blog.

Seoul is a modern city, and because of globalization, that doesn't mean too much different than any other modern city. So Andong was a great trip, I feel like I've gotten a glimpse of the real Korea.

First we saw the Buseok Buddhist Temple, where they have some of the oldest wooden buildings in Korea. A lot of Korean history has been destroyed by various invaders - Mongolians, Chinese, Japanese. Most recently the Japanese during the war. But the temple wasn't destroyed, neither was the folk village we went to on Sunday.

We ate at the base of the temple, then bussed to the Dosan Suwon Confucian Academy to run around and take pictures. I ended up getting my picture taking with a couple of very cute Korean girls. Korean kids have to be the most adorable thing in the world. It helps that Asians as adults are pretty much all beautiful, so their kids are naturally the cutest things ever.

We missed the bus going back to Yeongju once, and then when we got into Yeongju, we took another bus to Andong (about 20 mins away). We met up with my coworker Sean's friends in Andong for dinner.

I stayed with some coworkers Lex and Sara in a room, and we had a huge jacuzzi tub. Baths are a commodity here, because usually we shower just beside the toilet. There ARE normal showers I hear, but not so much in Apgujeong where I live.

The next morning we headed to the Hahoae folk village. This also proved to be a lot of fun wandering around cool old buildings. The village was somewhat of a working town, with all buildings kept in the old style. I got to see a bit of a mask dance as well. We had lunch there in an old building. I really like the style of eating in Korea. The low tables and just piles of food. I'm not used to where I can and cannot wear shoes though. I think it's pretty much anywhere inside a home you can't wear them. There's always a lot of taking on and off shoes during the day.

We left the folk village around 4 and got back into Andong. Traffic on Sunday to Seoul is THICK and so I was insistent we take the train. Lex didn't see why we should - because the wait was 2.5 hours until the train came, but I'd rather wait 2.5 hours hanging in Andong than wait
4 hours longer on the bus. We ended up taking the train (yes!) and we hung out at this cool pagoda sitting around drinking and talking.

There was a lot of little kids that were playing around that were shy from us. There was this really cute one that Sara was playing with for like an hour. I had a good time. There is so much to do here.