Andong
My Home for a Year...
In retrospective I can see that Andong will always be the heart of Korea for me. This little town so conservative and traditional has conserved the certain flavor that I will always remember as the real South Korea.
Andong is a medium size city. It is a market center. The people of the region are proud of their strong heritage. It's one of Korea's few areas with such an obvious contrast between old and new: tile-roof, paper-door houses sit next to concrete apartment blocks; old bearded gentlemen in horse-hair hats and flowing topcoats are seen next to young ladies wearing the latest fashions; sleek tourist buses pass farmers knee-deep in mud behind wooden plows and oxen. The low hills of Andong county contain numerous cultural remnants of old Korea. Buddhist temples snuggle into mountain vales, yangban manor houses stand proudly among thatched-roof peasant houses in country villages and sowon sit amidst pine groves as a symbol of Korea's literary and educational past.
Click here to see where Andong is situated in Korea.
I lived on the fifth floor of the same building in which I worked. I had a small room in a four bedroom apartment. There was also a small kitchen and a spacious bathroom in the apartment. No, there was no living room. I found that an apartment on top of one's working place is quite convenient. After all, I literally only had to roll out of bed to go to work!
Please follow me on a tour of Andong's surroundings...
