Way-gook-in' it up in Korea!: Andong Mask Festival

So this weekend was my first night away from home here in Korea! I'm a big girl!!

I got up Saturday morning at 6:15 (even though I woke up at 5:55, damn teacher schedule) and showered and got ready. I was planning on making my own breakfast and sneaking out of the house before anyone woke up. Well, for some reason my host mom felt the need to not only get up early to see me off, but also to make toast for me (as if I can't make it myself) and then drive me to the bus station because she was worried there would be no taxis (which there were plenty of). It was sooo kind of her, but I feel bad -- she should have slept in on her Saturday off!!

I caught the 7:30 bus from Suncheon to Daegu. It was a 3 hour bus ride during which I stared in awe at the beautiful countryside and got a good chunk of reading done. When I got to Daegu, as I had assumed, the next few buses to Andong were "sold out". So I got a ticket for the 11:40 bus. The Daegu bus terminal is soooo confusing. There are 5 different buildings all clustered together that collectively make up the bus terminal. Each building sells tickets to different places. So when I first arrived there, I went in the nearest building and asked about a ticket to Andong, they said go to the next building. I went there and they said go to the next building. Finally building 3 had tickets to Andong. Then I figured since I had to wait an hour anyway, I might as well figure out where the buses are back to Suncheon, and again I made the rounds and found out it was in the building across the busy street.I ran into Siobhan in the bus terminal, but when she went to get her bus ticket, she was on the 12:05 bus, because mine had filled up. When I actually got on the bus, however, it was only half full!! I don't understand why they would say a bus is full when it wasn't really. It makes me mad to think that I had to wait an hour, when there were probably open seats on the next bus.

Anyhoo, I got to Andong and ended up waiting the 20 min for Siobhan to arrive. We walked to the festival and met up with Karen, Debi, & Anna, and some other second/third year ETAs. The festival was great! There were several performance venues going on. One large outdoor stage had little kids doing TKD to upbeat songs -- one was "We will rock you" -- yes it was awesome. We bought a $5 ticket to the main venue and ended up watching Japanese, Russian, and then traditional Korean mask dance performances. The Russians blew me away! They were amazing! Check out some of the videos below. They even did a dance where they were all chickens and it was still incredible -- don't know how they pulled that off. Of course all the traditional Russian dance moves were in there -- the toe touches, back handsprings, 8 bazillion turns, the various jumps from a squatting position -- it was so much fun to watch. I loved part of the traditional Korean dances -- they had these long sheer white sleeves over a brightly colored tunic with 2 large brightly colored fans to match. It was gorgeous!

After watching some performances, and meeting up with Anne, we caught taxis back to Karen's house, where 6 of us spent the night. We dropped off our stuff, met her host mom, gave her gifts (I bought 4 pears), and freshened up. Then we headed to dinner -- we got pork cutlets stuffed with cheese and pizza filling, and a chicken cutlet to share. It was yummy!! :-) Then more taxis back to the festival. By this time it was chillllly out! It had to be in the lower 50's. I only had a light jacket -- same for everyone else pretty much -- so we were all freezing. Luckily they were selling lots of waffles and these little waffle balls filled with red bean paste (I LOVE THIS!) that were warm and we definitely ate more than our share of those. We saw some more Korean performances and belly dancing, and walked around all the little stands and vendors. I tried some Andong Soju -- it lives up to its reputation of being strong. Woo boy. I also bought a jar of apple jam for my host family -- Andong is famous for its apples.

Finally around 9:30 we headed back to Karen's and warmed up. We had tea, ate more fruit, and played Apples to Apples before all settling down to have a slumber party in Karen's room!! It was fun! We caught up and it was so good to hear from everyone. I slept on the floor, which was fine, but I woke up a little stiff.

The next morning we woke up early and made pancakes!!!! They were delicious and Karen is amazing for making them for us. We had banana/walnut, apple, and plain. And toppings included PB, chocolate syrup, butter, and strawberry jam. And we had OJ and milk!! YUM! It was incredible. I had 3.5 pancakes! Around 9:15 we caught a cab to the folk village, which actually ended up being quite expensive as it was about 15 miles out of town. But it was totally worth it -- we spent a couple hours walking around looking at the traditional houses and seeing some crafts. I bought some neat souvenirs! I got a wooden mask (20,000 won), a marionette representing one of the traditional characters from the Korean mask story (12,000 won), a pretty parasol (3,000 won), and a ceramic turtle (2,000 won). (1,000won is slightly less than $1) Yay!! Around 12:15 we caught a bus back to downtown and 4 of us got on the 1pm bus back to Daegu. I was really glad that I had bought my return ticket to Suncheon yesterday in Daegu, because it turns out my 3:30 bus back was quite full (only like 2 open seats) and the next bus didn't leave until 7:30. The others heading back to Gwangju weren't quite so lucky -- there were buses every 1/2 hour, but the first few were sold out, so they had to wait until 4 and 4:20 to get buses back, even though we arrived around 2:20 in Daegu. I learned my lesson and will buy my return tickets on they way to my desitation next weekend (we have a conference in Gyeongju -- so I have to go through Daegu again).

Anyway, the bus ride back to Suncheon was relaxing, and I did more reading. I only have about 30 pages left in my book yay!!! My taxi driver back to home was lame and went super slow and it cost about $1 more than it should have. I need to learn how to yell at people in Korean. :-P I remembered after the cab how to say "hurry" == bali. We had bibimbap for dinner, which is what I had for lunchi in Daegu -- one of my fav dishes, but a little much having it twice in one day.

I was hoping to watch the video of the Pres debates from friday but not enough time!! It's time for bed now. Have a great rest of your weekend everyone!