Breakfast this morning at the Mammoth Bakery – reputed to be one of the three best bakeries in Korea. It’s been here since 1974 and serves the best coffee we’ve had so far, with excellent croissants, and other French style baking. It would be really interesting to find out how someone started this kind of business that long ago…even 15 years ago, it was almost impossible to find even the most basic baking here – not even bread. Now there are many bakeries, but this one was really outstanding.
Hahoe Village was our destination for the day. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site, which has had people living in it since at least the mid 1650s. They say the houses have been continuously inhabited, but in order for mud and thatch houses to be that old they must have had constant maintenance. At what point have you replaced the entire house? And then, is it actually the same house or a new one?
I was a little disappointed because you can’t go inside any of the houses – there are people living in them. The main source of income seems to be guesthouses or homestay. It might have been interesting to stay there, but it was $160 a night, which is about 4 times our daily budget. We did have a lovely walk around the village though – the leaves are just beginning to turn colour and we were able to walk around the fields and under the trees. Even though it was pouring with rain, and quite chilly, it was a great day for walking. Poor Youngik, I don’t think he realized just how much I like to walk.
Then we went to the Byoungsan Seowon. It was a very old Confusion academy where people studied for the traditional government exams. It was established sometime in the 1350s, and was used until about 1870. There is a seating platform that is angled so that the students could contemplate the mountainside while they studied. There was no one there but us, probably because of the rain, so it was easy to imagine the scholars sitting there. It is considered to be the most beautiful seowan in Korea.
Andong is famous for salted grilled fish. There is a very old man here who has been designated as a cultural treasure by the government because he had an uncanny knack for determining the correct amount of salt to use for each fish. He’s now about 75 years old and is responsible for training other people. The fish is mackerel and it is served very simply—just salted and dried when it is caught, and then grilled and served with rice and side dishes. We enjoyed it for lunch, and then for a treat back to the bakery for another cup of coffee. You can see him on Youtube at https://youtu.be/L3ZCPBnqYJk
The rain finally stopped and we walked around town, managed to find a bank that could recognize my bank card (so now we have money), and then an early evening so we can dry our pants and shoes.
We rounded off the day by watching the movie Bucket List, which always make me cry.A