Andong and beyond

After a very pleasant few days in Busan, visiting a few sights, enjoying the much improved weather, drinking pretty good coffee and reading my new book (Karamazov Brothers - because my bag just wasn't heavy enough already) I headed off to meet Chi-He in Andong, a town in central S. Korea. Andong is famous for its Soju museum, and folk museum, at which location a popular Korean show is filmed.

When I say famous...I may overstate the case. The Soju museum is a room with exhibits on the culture and brewing of Soju - the classic Korean alcoholic drink at about 20% alcohol. The biggest draw to this museum was the Lonely Planet advertised shot of Soju at the end of the tour - this did not materialise. Never mind, at least the walk back to town along the main road was pleasant enough...there was a rather nice bridge along the way.

The following day we redeemed our voucher for a free donut at dunkin' donuts and headed out to the folk village via a 7 storey brick pagoda. It being very much autumn in Korea, and this bringing out a range of colours on the trees the countryside is really quite pleasant at the moment, and the walk near the dam - which displaced the houses relocated into the folk village - and along the river was quite pleasant as a result. The village itself was not particularly interesting as there were very few displays or anything of that nature, only the buildings themselves - however it was a fairly pleasant stroll around in the warm autumn sun.

Although the food was very pleasant, and the 4 hour train journey back to Seoul wasn't too bad, the motel was pretty mediocre (it was no ritz that's for sure), the place too was of no particular interest to most people I should imagine.

I have now moved on to Geongju from Seoul, a place with tombs and a fairly impressive fort overlooking the new town - which was very nice to walk around, and then from there to Buyeo (pronounced boo-ya...no kiding), a place with similar attractions. I had planned to spend tonight in the Buyeo hostel...having walked up there to find the 'less institutional feel' hostel (LP) looking very much like a school, with a coach outside, and with a load of kids running around I decided 'fuck this', took a quick walk around the sculpture park and up to the nearby river and then headed to the Arirang Motel, a motel comparable to the Ritz with a PC in the room, 'mood lighting' free tea/'coffee', a water cooler/heater in the room and so on. Tomorrow I'll see the Buyeo sights then head back to Seoul for my last few days and bits of sightseeing there.