Hi there! I’m gonna tell you about Andong Hahoe Village today.
Andong is not a big city, but quite old city – since hundreds years ago. I’m going to introduce only Hahoe village, but there are other landmarks and culture treasures around Andong. If you want to feel long long time ago Korea or understand Korean old and traditional culture, I highly recommend to visit Andong. I saw many foreigners at there so it will be good for you guys to travel around there.
There are some accommodations. I stayed Linker Party House and I met nice girls from France and Singapore. The hosts were so nice, too. If you want to stay there, please click this link and check the cost and e-mail address of the host. (Unfortunately, there is no English version. If you need any help, send me a direct message through instagram.) Additionally, there is B&B house in Hahoe village without bed. If you stay there, you can walk around the village at late night with less visitors. I heard it’s really good experience even for Korean.
Anyway! I started to travel around Andong and take a city bus no.46 at Kyobo building. You can get there by walking 5 minutes from Andong station. If you get to Andong by intercity bus, bus terminal is much closer than station to Hahoe village. You don’t need to follow this way. Almost every bus line stops by here. So it will be nice to recognize the building in the below picture.
Not only for city bus, also around this building is downtown. There is cafe, Homeplus, usim store, and etc. Therefore, if you need to check something before your travel, it will be nice place to visit. Also for the people like me who can’t live without coffee, since there is not cafe in Hahoe village, so you should prepare your coffee at there. 😉
When I visited there, it was middle of July, it’s hottest season in Korea, and I almost died. I couldn’t think anything without hotness. I don’t recommend to visit Andong in Summer. It was 33 degrees Celsius and no shade. Ugh!
Although it was hot weather, it was perfect day for taking pictures. My Galaxy Note 5 got hard because it couldn’t take a rest during this travel. Haha!
Taking a city bus from downtown or intercity bus terminal, you will get off at ticket office of Hahoe village. You should buy ticket and can take a shuttle bus for free to the village. Next to ticket office, there are restaurants. Since there is no restaurant and any CVS in the village and if you feel hungry, it will be good to have a meal in there. Specialty of Andong is Salted Grilled Mackerel. It’s really good and I will post it on my website, too.
Riding on the shuttle bus for 5 minutes, you can get to the village. Unless there was concrete pavement, it would be look like at least 200 years ago. Even now, there are people living in there in that old houses.
I took about 3 hours seeing only few part of that village. So please plan for this village enough hours.
Actually, I wanted to go Byeongsan Seowon, which is old school of middle of Choseon dynasty(1614, 500 years ago), but because of hot weather, I gave up. There is a river around the village, and if you walk along with the river, you can get to the Seowon. It’s famous as historical meaning and beautiful structure. It would be nice when you visit there.
There are some buildings like this much old. I couldn’t get close to there because of safety and preservation but it’s okay because there are others. 😉
There are families living in this house! Moreover, that is common state of this village.
I think this is difference between Andong and Jeonju that are famous with Korean Historical Villages. I visited Jeonju before, and almost people selling something are outsiders from other cities. Just for business. Thus, it was hard to feeling ‘traditional’ and ‘comfortable’ that I can feel from Korean style housing. BUT! Andong is very different with Jeonju. First, outsiders are blocked from 1 km away for protecting the village. It cause citizen care their own life and local culture from outside. Second, people are living in the village still now and keep going their life on their way caring their house. Even really nice house, if there is nobody living in there, the house get worse and worse. It is important that somebody is living in there in the point of view. Last, there is not smelly food store in there. I think it doesn’t need any subscription about the ‘smell.’ Who likes it at that kind of area? Accordingly, for me, Andong is even better than Jeonju for traveling.
This is Balsam. When we color our nail with it and it maintains until first snow, after that, first love will come about! Haha!
It was listed as World Heritage by the UNESCO in 2010. After that, it’s cared from all over the world. I don’t know the process of UNESCO, but I can envision it might be better to care the heritage than nothing.
The tree which you can see in the below picture was planted by Elizabeth 2 in 1999.
That tree is located in front of Choonghyodang and it means loyalty and filial piety hall. I couldn’t look around all of this house because I didn’t have enough time. The owner of this house is Yu Seong-ryong, who was a famous politician in 16 and 17 century, and he wrote Jingbilock which is book listed on National Treasure of Korea. Of course, when he was living in there, it must be quite different with now because his descendants cared it and made extension through long time.
This is Yangjindang and it was selected as treasure in 1963. This building is also connected with Yu Seong-ryong – it was older brother’s house and family house, too.
Even now Yu’s families are living in there. It means we can’t see all of this house. I wanna say thanks to them for opening their house to us.
It was so hot, I was totally exhausted and there was time limit just for myself so I couldn’t enjoy it all, and I wanna visit there again after weather becomes forgiving for me. As I said, summer is not good season to visit there.
Anyway, when you come out from the village, sometimes, you can take a city bus at the village. The bus stop is in front of The Village Hall. Around the hall, there is traditional tea cafe. I couldn’t take a picture of outside but inside. The host doesn’t take credit card only cash. Also it’s only traditional tea and the host made it by herself, so it could be strange for foreigners even for Korean. 😉
It takes about 50 minutes to downtown and 30 minutes to intercity bus terminal.
It became long posting and lot of pictures haha!
Thank you for reading all this post. I wish this posting was helpful for you and if there is more tips, please tell me through anyway.
Hopeflly, have a nice day in Korea!
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