Mask Festival

Big mask

Mask float

He's going to do something with a pig

Ceremony man

There's his pig!

Bigger mask!

Another big mask!

Can't get away, what is this, a mask festival?

Andong mask dance, a dance with...yep, masks!

Barely back from Seoul on Thursday night, worked on Friday, then woke up early Saturday morning to catch a bus to my next adventure. This weekend, I was off to the small town of Andong, for the 13th Andong Mask Festival!

I went with 4 friends of mine: 3 other foreign teachers and one Korean administrative assistant from my work. She was the one who helped us arrange the trip and accommodations. The 3 hour bus ride dropped us off in the middle of Andong, near where the festival was bustling. We walked around and looked at all of the large colorful masks decorating the festival grounds, watched the traditional mask dances, and found a booth where we could even make our own masks! We loved this booth and seriously stayed here for over an hour....5 twenty-something girls sitting amongst a bunch of little Korean kids making paper and clay masks, yeah buddy! We used these masks as props for most of the rest of the pictures we took on this trip :) 

There was a ton of stuff to see and do at this festival, but eventually we had to leave to catch a bus to another side of the town, the Hahoe village. That was where we were staying, and where they were going to have a traditional fireworks display. Apparently tons of people wanted to see these fireworks, because we crammed ourselves into the bus going over there. I learned that standing sardine-close to a bunch of foreigners on a bumpy 50 minute bus ride is not my cup of tea...but once we got there it was all worth it. The sun was just setting over the mountains and fields framing the traditional houses, and the last few rays of the day illuminated the lazy river that encircled the village. It was so pretty there that I didn't even mind that we were having trouble finding which hut we were sleeping in.....Wait, we're actually sleeping in one of the huts in the village?? A "mimbok", actually. When we finally found it (they kind of all look the same) it turned out that it's just a wood and paper door that lead into a small room, geared with a few blankets and a tv for some reason. No bed, sink, nothing. We could just barely fit all 5 of us on the floor to sleep....shoulder to shoulder to wall. The whole place was actually really cool! The bathroom hut and shower hut were outside of our sleeping hut, and they weren't so cool because they smelled pretty bad. But the experience overall was great! When else can I sleep in a hut like that??

River around Hahoe Village

Inside our hut

Toilet hut

Entrance to our mimbok area

Gorgeous morning!

Once we dropped off our stuff, it was about time for the fireworks so we found our way in the dark and sat on the sandy shore of the river. Across the river was a big cliff where they first had a spotlight on a Korean dancer. Then they began the traditional fireworks, which are not like your typical 4th of July fireworks. First there was a boat that was all lit up with candle flames, slowly floating down the river. Then there were "egg fireworks", or lanterns in the shape of eggs that floated on the water too. Then there were several cables that stretched from our side of the river to the cliffs on the other side. They lit the cables on our end and they started sparkling. That firework sparkle grew very slowly across the cables and eventually inched it's way across the river. It was so pretty to see because the sparkles were also raining sparks into the river. After the rope fireworks had grown to halfway across, the fourth firework started, which was fireballs that were thrown from the top of the cliff across the river. The fireballs were just thrown straight down the cliff into some abyss that I couldn't see since it was dark and far away. Meanwhile the full moon was rising up from one of the mountains. The whole spectacle was breathtaking and made me feel like I was back in another time period. 

See! Other ppl take pics of food too!

After enjoying the show, we went through the village area in search of a late dinner. Andong has a famous steamed chicken dish (I can't remember how to say it in Korean, sorry!) that we had to sample, and it did not disappoint!

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The next day we walked all around Hahoe Village and took tons of pictures of the gorgeous landscape littered with straw thatch roofs. In one area of the village was a huge tree that is over 500 years old. Millions of people from all over have visited this tree to write down a wish on a piece of paper and tie it to the branches. Of course I am not one to visit a 500 year old wishing tree and not do anything about it....so now I too have a wish tied to the tree :) After going through the rest of the village, we hoped on a bus back to the other side of town to the mask festival again, this time with a mission.

More mask dancers

The belly dancers we danced with

Little tae-kwon-do-ers :)

Tried to catch the board breaking!

The drummers we danced with

Us in our masks, I'm the far right

There were tons of arts and crafts booths where you could make various things right at the festival. We had so much fun making our masks (and wearing them, as you've seen) that we wanted to do more. So I made my own soap, make some bubbles, and I made a Korean letter, and I painted an ocharina, which is a traditional small clay flute thing. The whole time we were doing the activities, random Koreans continued to take pictures of us. On one of the performance stages we saw the Korean fan dance and a mask dance. Some Korean belly dancers pulled us 4 white girls on stage during their pre-performance audience participation bit! They were teaching the classic mask dance moves so we had to do that with them. As you can imagine, the photographers were going crazy with this, but we were having so much fun we didn't care! After that we were released and they did their performance. Then some little tae kwon do students did some demonstrations to music, complete with good old fashioned nunchucks and board-breaking! After all this, it was time to leave to catch our bus. However, as we were making our exit through the crowd, some drummers pulled us into their drumming circle for us to dance with them! So jig we did, for a few moments anyway. Then as we were inching out of that clump, an old man grabbed us and motioned for us to sit and eat with another large party. It looked like fun and he was so nice, it was hard to tell him that we needed to catch the bus. As we continued to make our way through these parties, someone grabbed my friend, Laura, and gave her a shot of soju for her to drink with him as he shouted, "Korean #1!" Upon finally exiting the grounds, we passed a dancing donut man.....he was literally dancing as he made his donuts. This is impressive because his man had been dancing and making donuts when we passed him to enter this morning. So what did we do? Well, naturally we had to have a farewell dance with him :)

Dancing donut man and his ladies!

By the time we got on the bus to head home, we were unanimously exhausted but extremely happy! I had no idea that Koreans could have so much fun!