Adventures in Andong!

I'm back again folks. Don't worry - I come prepared - with lots and lots of pictures. This week has been a ton of fun as it's a holiday. As Franz Ferdinand so accurately say, "It's always better on holiday, so much better on holiday..."

HJ took the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off to hang with me. Needless to say, that made things like...close...to a million times better. We kicked off our adventures on Wednesday by hitting up a local outdoor pool. I've kinda been begging HJ to take me swimming and she finally gave in...although she had a great time too! So, yeah, this was a huge, clean, new outdoor pool. Now, this is not like any pool in Canada though. As per Seoul style, it was absolutely swarming with people. I wish I had taken a photo. This wasn't really a deterrent though as the "adult" pool was not nearly as crowded. Anyway, it was a completely refreshing and enjoyable experience. Afterwards though, both HJ and I could barely waddle home, we were so tired. The temperature here has risen exponentially recently, taking the juice right out of you...

This set the stage for visiting Andong on Thursday, which was the big excursion we planned with the pastor from Hyejung's church. Andong is more of a traditional area, with lots of national historic sites to visit. It is actually about 3 and 1/2 hours out of Seoul, so it was a bit of a drive for sure, especially considering it seemed every other person in Seoul had the same idea, making traffic nice and slow.

The first stop was the ancient village Hahoe. Legend has it that this village was so isolated from the rest of Korea that they weren't even aware of WWII. Pretty incredible, eh? Geographically, it would be very hard get to as it is surrounded by water on two sides. Recently, the Korean goverenment has built roads into the small village and opened it up as a tourist spot. Truthfully, the village is incredibly preserved...

So, as you can see, I am decked out in the hottest hat in Korea right now. Joking. I should point out though, that contrary to what you might think, this type of hat is NOT traditionally Korean. This would in fact be a traditional hat in Vietnam. I had this mentioned to me a few times and so I thought I would pass on this valuable piece of information to you as well...

Here is HJ's pastor, who I came to call Mok-sa-nim, just like everyone else, as well as HJ and I. Her pastor was so nice to help organize the trip and take us around everywhere. He knew the area quite well...

Sometimes the heat just gets too much...kk. Actually, it was close to 40 degrees out there, so in a matter of minutes you were just exhausted. This guy drove us down to Andong, so he has good reason to be tired...

Well, I have more photos and more stories, but I'll have to put them on hold for now. I gotta head out. Hope you enjoyed getting to know Hahoe a little bit...

Until then!