We arrived in Andong and travelled some 25km out to our short pit-stop in Pungcheon. A little Milton Keynes-esk and unfinished. It’s obviously a new town and has yet to establish itself. I am totally infatuated by the high-rise living over here, everywhere has these clumps of identical boxes rising out of the ground. All identical, all plain, all coded. Pungcheon didn’t disappoint, it certainly had its fair share.
Could these youngsters be Korea’s next concert pianists? As we walked around the town every block had a piano shop, piano school or private piano tutors.
As we are making our way down the east side of the country the Andong Hahoe Cultural Village seemed like a good place to stop in at.
The village is home to descendants of the Ryu Clan of Pungsan, which still makes up 70 percent of the villagers. Three mountains and a dense pine forest encircle the village like a folding screen. The homes are typical Korean houses preserved since the Joseon Dynasty.
There is a large amount of crops grown around the perimeter, as well as in the gardens. This is a genuine living and working community.
The houses with the fancy tiled roofs would have once belonged to the rich and famous while the ones with straw roofs belonged to the peasants.
There’s a 600 year old tree where you can write a wish on a piece of rice paper.
We wandered around the alleys, it is very pretty but disturbingly quiet. It has to be said it was disappointing that so many of the arts, traditional craft workshops and dance were nowhere to be seen, maybe we just came on the wrong day? Most residents hide themselves away. I can’t say I blame them.
There was barely a hanok we could go into as they were locked up. We were promised so much in the reviews…
I really wanted to have a go at Calligraphy but unfortunately it wasn’t open, only for coffee.
There was one lady - The Storyteller, who was having a new 50 inch TV delivered so we went into her courtyard. She didn’t seem to mind having visitors. There weren’t any stories, but she showed us her under floor heating system - a wood-burning stove under the hanok that heats the floors of the bedrooms. As you can imagine each building has at least 4 fire extinguishers. Some of the hanoks are available to rent, which is an experience we are planning on having further along our journey.
The Storyteller
The room you can rent comes with heated floor and TV, but no beds at a hanok stay! You sleep on the floor on a padded mat.
The centuries-old village has a bond with the late Queen Elizabeth who visited it during her trip to Korea back in April 1999. There is a whole hanok dedicated to her visit, full of photographs and offerings. This one was most definitely open.
Self-portrait at the late Queen’s visit.
Home of a Potter, his garden looked beautiful but unfortunately it was closed.
No shoes in the hanok. Each of the doors is lined with hanji paper.
Peering over the wall revealed a beautiful garden.
Peering through into a courtyard you can see the large earthenware pots. The Doks as they are called, are used for fermenting the three pillars of the Korean table: soy sauce, hot pepper paste and brown bean paste.
The homemade lemonade in a quirky cafe ran by a resident was lovely and very welcome in the sunshine.
A horseshoe river wraps around one half of the village, with fields surrounding the other. A sandy beach nestles under an old pine forest, overlooked by an impressive Buyongdae Cliff face.
A pretty place and a pleasant stroll, but it was unfortunate that so much appears to be closed… Even the boat to take you over to the cliff wasn’t operating.