Road trip!

out at the fire

Buseok is always a magical place for me. It's sort of like camping: we stay in a little room in mom's little house, hot water is limited by the coal briquettes mom burns for heat. And of course, we got to have a nice outdoor fire - which I love.

firing up the grill

I just wanted to have a little fire outside for fun, but as soon as mom saw what we were up to, she went to work. She dumped our fire out, threw all the hot coals into her little grill apparatus, and off we went. As usual, I wasn't really hungry (after another long day of eating), but it's hard to resist wood fired pork belly.

the Buseok feast

Koreans are as serious about barbecue as they are about every other meal. It's got to have as many side dishes as possible. Another night of grilled feast.

bridge near buseok

Road trips around Buseok take you through winding mountains and little villages. You can't drive more than a few kilometers before finding somewhere to stop and check out. Everyone is super friendly, if not a bit stiff. More on that soon. This bridge crosses a river we once fished for dinner described in this post a couple of years back.

pots on display

Another place to stop and check out. At first, I thought it was a shop that sells these large pots. They're used by country folks to make all the different kinds of fermented dishes that Koreans love (Kimchi, Doenjang, Gochujang, etc). But no, the guy who owns the place actually just collects them and displays them in front of his house. He's a bit of an eccentric - he seemed like he restores old cars and has a garden here too.

bridge over the river

The river winds through the mountains and villages just like the road. It was convenient construction to follow the path already cut by the river, rather than blasting new tunnels through the mountains. These are the old roads that take quite a while to get where you're going - perfect for a road trip.

ladies grilling the fish

The road trip led us to Andong - the main city in this part of the province. Andong is famous throughout Korea for Confucian scholarly traditions. Since it's somewhat remote from the capital of the province, Daegu, rulers of the past sent potential political troublemakers here to teach and study. There's a rich culture of intellectuals and eccentrics which is still evident today. The first place we walked into for lunch only served Budae Jiggae - which is a common food served along with many other dishes in any other Korean restaurant. The lady who runs the place (by herself) told us that if we didn't want Budae Jiggae, we should probably just leave to find somewhere more suitable. It was strange. I was told that this is typical of Andong people. They are very specific in their expectations, and they'll recommend you do something in a convoluted way just to make sure you get the best result. Hence, we left and went to the market. Good thing too, because we realized that it was the annual salted mackerel festival!

our grilled fish

Ok, salted mackerel might not sound that exciting, but Andong is famous for it. I'm told that it's about a 3 day hike from the ocean, so fish needed to be salted to make it all the way to Andong. Andong scholars were of course very specific in their demands for the mackerel, so it became the Andong Gan Godungeo. The downtown market was packed. We ducked into a little place on the side that was grilling up the fish - it was awesome.

shake what you got

A staple of any good Korean street festival are the performers known as Kakseori. There's a special blend of clowning, singing, and cross dressing that make these performances unique. Most of the jokes tend to be lewd, and this guy had a rubber dong that he was exuberantly displaying.

dancin in the street

Andong is a very conservative place, so it's ironic that these people were so popular. It's just an accepted tradition that the clowns are allowed to joke about the things that most people aren't. There was lots of dancing from the ajumas.

peace out