Hahoe Folk Village!

This weekend was so, so amazing. There are so many great pictures I want to put up here....
Anyway!
We left at sunrise on Saturday morning to go to Andong, about a four hour journey and two busses north into the countryside of Korea. We first arrived in downtown Andong, where the center of the festival was. There were hundreds of people, and so many foreigners! There was plenty to do there, a lot of food and mask contests, but we really wanted to get to the folk village as quickly as possible, so we maybe spent an hour downtown looking at the different things.

fun in hanbok

The children's mask contest, all handmade out of plaster and hand painted! There were dozens

Hah

We then hopped on ANOTHER bus that was completely jam packed and headed to the Andong Hahoe Folk Village, about 40 minutes further. The scenery is absolutely breathtaking there, so peaceful and still.

Andong Hahoe Folk Village

Traditional mask

Since there are no hotels in this town, we had to figure out a solution, and quickly, since not many busses go to and from the Hahoe village. We walked around a bit through the village, had some drinks and snacks, and eventually found what is called a minbak. This is essentially an empty room in someone's house that they rent out to visitors for cheap. You sleep on mats on the floor, which is heated. We got ours for 80,000 won (which was a really good rate to split five ways!!) We were extra lucky, because the lady of the house also cooked us a delicious traditional meal, which was incredible spicy chicken, kimchi, sweet potato stalks, rice, potatoes, carrots, and seaweeed. It was awesome.

The communal village: each little thatch house has an absolutely AMAZING specialized garden. There was tons of fresh vegetables, lush fruit trees, and flowers everywhere I looked. The people are only too happy to share what they have.

Sitting next to the river and a 180 foot cliff. We actually saw several sturdy ropes strung across the river, which you can't see in this picture. We thought they were for zip lining and we got so excited to try it! We asked a guy who manned a skiff if it was possible to zip line today, and he was like, "WTF?!" and then explained to us that the ropes were to be used in a fireworks show. At this point we had no idea what that meant, but we were pretty bummed about not being able to zip line, haha. 

All of the architecture was made for hobbits!

We then sat on the beach at nightfall and were seriously awestruck by the traditional Korean fire show.
It's hard to tell from this video, which doesn't do it justice AT ALL, but here's what happens: First what you'll see is several ropes are strung across the river up to the top of the cliff. There are hundreds of charcoal bags hanging from the ropes, and when lit, they produce sparks. When they are all lit, it looks like the sparks are raining down to the earth into the river, so magical!!! It was completely mesmerizing. (However, we all walked through the sparks (good luck?) and wound up completely covered in ash, haha.)

Second is a boat in the river with masked dancers aboard, guiding "spirit" river lanterns downstream.

Third is a very traditional "fireworks" show, which is quite literally, someone lighting huge chunks of wood on fire at the top of a 180 foot cliff, then throwing them off the cliff. Haha. It was amazing. This is what you hear, when the woman in the background is saying, "Gda, deu, mai..." then the kids scream "DROP FIRE!!!"

After this, there were traditional fireworks that we all know (which were actually amazing, but since you all know what those look like I didn't feel the need to include those on video). After that, we walked around in search of a snack. We went to a little restaurant at the edge of town, which was actually full of foreigners, haha. We got traditional savory Korean pancakes and makali, a (disgusting) fermented rice milk drink. We also bought some beers to go and headed back for the beach.

The beach was almost completely deserted at that time, but the rope fireworks were still going, four hours later!!! It was amazing, like our own private show. CR, Aine and Gareth gathered wood and built this lovely fire for us and we told scary stories for a few hours.

After that, we hit the floor, haha. We woke up early today and went back to the festival downtown, then made the long journey back. It was incredible! I'm so happy that I was able to enjoy it.

More soon!!
<3 M