Angong

Today we worked at the school for an hour, then the Vice Principle (VP) took us foreign teachers out to play tourist.

We went to the Angong folk village.

The day started out beautiful.  The sun was shining.  There was a good breeze.  We jumped into the VP's car and headed off campus.  We drove through Namsan and to Naim.  In Naim, we stopped at a market to pick up snacks.  Then we continued on our way for another hour.

Once we got to Angong, we drove to the folk village area.  We didn't have to pay to drive in because us foreigners were along :)  This entire year is tourist year.  They let the foreigners do a lot of stuff for free!  We parked and went to the Hahoe Mask Museum.  They didn't allow pictures in there sadly.  There were masks from all around the world with information on all of them.  The history behind them.  It was absolutely amazing.

After that, we went back to Angong and went out to eat.  We went to a traditional Korean restaurant that Elizabeth II had visited.  It was amazing!!  Totally took a lot of pictures!  The food was really good.  I can't remember now what any of the dishes was called.  I can tell you that it filled me up for the rest of the day.  There was strips of beef covered in sauce with toppings.  There was a noodle dish.  There was a main dish that had many vegetables and chicken and noodles all covered in sauce.  The chicken over here, by the way, still has the bone in it.  There was fish and fish guts too, but I didn't try it.  There were several other small dishes and rice, but I don't remember them much.  I was having too much fun ;)

There was a game out on the lawn outside where you throw sticks into pots.  It is really fun.  We did that while we were waiting for our food to be ready.  Of course we took pictures too ;)

After lunch we drove back to the folk village area and once again parked.  Then we walked past the museum and the market that is set up there to a bus stop in that folk village area.  We took a bus to the folk village itself.  When we got off, we went to see a mask dance that was going on.  The mask festival is this week.  It was really funny even though I didn't understand the Korean words that were spoken.  It wasn't just a dance, but a play as well.

Continuing our walk, we went around the entire village.  There were so many neat buildings.  You could see how the different dwellings were set up.  The way that they heated them under the floors.  There were some shops too and yes, I couldn't resist buying two or three items.  We came to a playground.  Their swings are super tall and you are supposed to stand on the swing and make it go that way.  Also the teeter totters are meant to be jumped on, and I did pretty well if I say so myself.  They are wide, thick boards that aren't more than a foot off the ground.

Down by the river is an amazing cliff.  The river is super wide, wider than the Kansas river in Manhattan, KS. There are super wide sandbars.  The boulders that fell from the cliff on the other side are more like small hills than boulders.  And the trees are so thick and twisted that it is easy to climb them.  My camera died at this point so I had others with me take pictures for me with their cameras.

We finally finished and headed back towards the school.  We stopped in Namsan for supper.  Had an amazing rice dish.  You have a mound of fried rice with egg crumbles on top.  You also have a sauce with vegetables diced up in it.  You mixed the two and enjoy :)  That particular dish comes with soup... but the octopus tentacles inside of it convinced us foreigners that we weren't that brave.

Finally we returned and I am not going to lie, I'm exhausted!  It was a lot of fun though and I really enjoyed the day.  It was well planned.  Also the school was generous in not only providing that time off but paying for everything too.