unsolved mysteries?

when i studied abroad in greece, on a trip to prague, i bought my mother a set of crystal wine glasses. they were really beautiful, with green (or was it blue?) crystal decorations on the glass. i was so worried about this gift, that i had my friend bring it back to thessaloniki to keep it safe while i continued on my travels.

while i was in athens, i also bought a silver bracelet. it was one of a few things that i bought solely for myself, a guilty pleasure. i loved that bracelet, when i saw it i knew immediately that i wanted it. it had no clip, the metal just wrapped around your wrist in a winding, grecian pattern.

i've lost both these items since then. however, lost may not be the correct word. i don't think ive ever had anything purposely stolen from me before, but i've always had the nagging feeling that these were stolen. i literally had them in my possession one day, and the next day they were gone. even two years later i have my suspicions.

really random that i thought about this now. but these two items were important to me. i dont think of myself as a materialistic person, but there are some things i own that i place a lot of meaning on. those wine glasses were a beautiful gift that i wanted to present to my mother. that bracelet was going to be my one souvenir of my experience in greece. it's one thing to lose these things, but to have them taken from you feels much worse.

This Is Andong!!

This is what happens when you accidentally piss off a South Korean Spartan.
Wait, rewind...

A few weeks ago my friend Hyolee invited me to her hometown of Andong. Andong is very famous in Korea for its yearly Mask Dance Festival held in September/October. Last year when I had arrived to Korea, there was talk of going but because we were in the midst of the swine flu crisis, the festival was canceled. After that I had no real interest in going to Andong until I met Hyolee. Andong is also really famous for Hahoe Village, claimed to be the oldest traditional village in South Korea.

So one Friday night, Hyolee, her boyfriend Lloyd and I took a late bus to her town, and stayed at her mother's house. Meeting Hyolee's mother was a blast. She was very eccentric in her mannerisms, upon first impressions see seemed to be unapproachable, even scary; but once she warmed up to you, she was extremely warm-hearted and nice. She was especially fond of Lloyd, Hyolee's Australian boyfriend, and upon our arrival, the first thing Hyolee's mom did was to call Lloyd over so she could greet him, and didn't even bother to greet her daughter first!

Hyolee's mother operated a restaurant in the middle of a traditional market, so the next day we went to visit her there. The city of Andong is a small enough place that once Hyolee took me out on the street and pointed out the direction to the market, her house, the bus station and downtown, I basically knew where I was and how to get places. At the market we checked out a lot of seafood on display, including some exceptionally large octopuses (!) and also stumbled upon a street dedicated to bosintang, Korean dog stew! On the street they had buckets of dog meat... and dog skins. It was extremely mortifying to see at first, and hard to walk through. But there was a lady at one shop who was in the middle of chopping some meat... and she let us take pictures. And although I can never imagine myself eating this soup, I understand that the practice has been in the Korean culture for centuries, and lately its mostly the older generations who continue to eat it.


After visiting her mother, Hyolee, Lloyd and I made our way to the bus station to catch a bus to Hahoe Village. On the way we ran into Lloyd's friend Dave and his group, who we had heard were visiting Andong at the same time. Due to this chance meeting, we made our way to Hahoe Village together and spent most of the day together.

No, this isn't Bosintang... it's our lunch, Andong Jimtak aka chicken!!

At Hahoe Village, we saw a traditional mask performance. The performances were broken up into parts, and since it was all in Korean, a lot of it went over my head. However, one memorable performance was one of the butcher and his cow, where during the performance, the bucher chopped off the cow's abnormally large testicles and tried to sell it to the audience! hahaha


After this performance we wandered a bit through the village. The village itself is relatively small but it is easy to get lost wandering through... it's also surrounded by Nakdong River, which winds around it in an "S" shape, creating a yin/yang symbol effect. On the east side of the village a boat takes you across the river to a cliff, and after a short 10 minute hike, you are granted an insanely beautiful view of the whole village.



After some relaxing frolicking time and a visit to an old fertility tree (which may have inadvertently knocked me up...^^), we made our way back to Andong. Our new (and some old) friends were in Andong for a birthday, and had plans that night to stay at a boathouse so they could go wake boarding the next day. Lloyd and I decided to meet with them that night and crash their party. We had a pretty good night, and spent the night on the boat as well.



All in all, my visit to Andong was extremely fun, memorable, and relaxing! And what's more, Hahoe Village was recently designated a UNESCO World Heritage site!