Weekend in Andong (안동)

 Andong 안동

Day ONE:

After taking a 3 hour bus-ride from Seoul to Andong via Central Terminal in 고속터미널 (the tickets can be purchased either via internet or at the station at ~16,500won), I finally arrived in Andong feeling rather famished and excited.

It was the first time I had been to Andong, which I just simply knew as a city famous for its traditional village and the famous soy-sauce stew chicken famously named "안동 찜닭(Andong Stewed Chicken)". So to many of my friends, I had travelled for 3 hours to eat the ORGINAL 안동찜닭.... now that's dedication to finding good food around seoul.

After arriving at the bus-terminal (rather far from city central), I met my friend who travelled from Busan to take the local bus into town. Almost all the buses go to the city central (just a matter of shorter/longer route).. I recommend taking the BUS 11 or BUS 0-1 and getting off at 안동초등학교 (Andong Elementary School) just in time for dinner or lunch at the infamous 안동찜닭골목 Andong Chicken Street! you know a town is serious about its chicken... when you have a whole street dedicated to just chicken. Literally it was shops after shops selling the SAME thing and all proclaiming they were the original and the best. 

However, as always, I came prepared to try only the best. After all I had travelled all the way from Seoul for this dinner! After spending silly amount of times researching in the internet.... I found THIS ONE coincidently sharing my name (which came highly recommended by locals) - google/naver 

The menu is rather straight forward and simple (and no portions to choose from... so if you're travelling with just two... you have no choice to be insanely bloated).  The Andong Stewed Chicken was ~18,000won enough for 2-3 (or even 3-4) people!

Even for all of those reading (if any) who had tried this famous korean dish before in Seoul or any other city... has not truly tried Stewed Chicken unless they have had it here! Rather than the overly sweet and mundane Chicken Stew... The one you got in 유진안동찜닭 was the right mix of spiciness and sweetness filled with perfectly cooked noodles and chicken!  It  had left the two of us (rather small girls) happily bloated to literally waddle out of the shop as the shopkeeper looked at us with half admiration and half pity.

We stayed at a guesthouse called Guesthouse Gotaya (tripadvisor), which is conveniently located in downtown (near the train station) and rather guest-friendly + cheap! We had stayed in a clean female dorm but I did hear that they had private rooms as well for those interested. 

Day TWO:

We woke up early (as the bus to the Folk Village runs every hour - check the schedule beforehand!), to quickly head to the Mammoth Bakery to buy breakfast before catching the bus. Mammoth Bakery 맘모스제과 is apparently one of the Top 3 bakeries in Korea and apparently featured in the Michelin Guide. It is located in the city center (naver map/ google map), and as such there's always a long queue of people greedily piling on breads on their trays.

Their most famous bread is the Cream Cheese Bread and Walnut Cream Bread (as well as the Blueberry pie bread(?). Due to the popularity of the bakery the breads get sold out so quickly so it's a matter of luck which type is left (there's also a great variety of croissants, pastries, baguettes and so forth).

We managed to score the two of the "best" items (which were rather expensive at 4,000won each).

They also have a extensive selection of cakes, which are also said to be of excellent quality (some of which my friend later came back to buy for her family).

Although we wanted to try some of the cakes as well, we were rathe pressed for time to make the bus (8:50AM) that we bagged the two buns and dashed off to the bus-station (only 20m from the shop).

Although the walnut cream bun was rather disappointing (too sweet) the cream-cheese bun was surprisingly good! But it didn't really live up to its fame in my opinion unlike our chicken! :D' The bus ride to the folk village takes around 50 - 60 min, after which you arrive at this picturesque village by the mountains. Make sure you go when it is warm (or wear appropriate boots) or you'll end up freezing your toes off like we did. There's also lots of traditional guesthouses where you get to experience sleeping in these amazing houses. I heard they were quite expensive, but it is definitely an experience that I wouldn't mind returning for!

Another thing Andong is famous for is there SOJU. Andong Soju is much much stronger than the normal soju (at 40% alcohol content).  The generic soju is a chemical based alcohol where as Andong Soju is still distilled from wheat.  As such, I am told that Andong Soju has a much cleaner and deeper taste as well as the added bonus of a 'clearer' head the next day.

There's also a great variety of programs such as mask making or calligraphy that you can try at the village... and such this is my attempt at calligraphy :)

After a morning walk around town, we made our way back to the city where we had a traditional sardines lunch set at 일직식당 (naver map), which came recommended by our guesthouse. 

The rest of our short trip involved the walk to the 벽화마을 which is a small part of town where the walls are decorated/spray-painted as well as the walk to the famous wooden bridge (1-2km away from town). The bridge called 월영교 (wol-young-gyo) is the longest wooden bridge in Korea, only a short distance away from the Andong Dam (안동댐). Although we couldn't visit the dam due to time-constraint, I hear it is worth the drive/walk up :)