Chuseok is one of Korea’s most important holidays. This is a time spent with their families and a exchanging a lot of gifts. This also means that almost all of the Koreans travel in one weekend, which means bad traffic. Nevertheless, me and my colleague decided that we are not staying at home and wanted to see a bit of Korea. We started off in Andong, where a Mask Dance festival was held.
Luckily it wasn’t very difficult to get to Andong and even with traffic it only took 30 minutes longer. Soon after we arrived, we started our expeditions. The first one, was a bit by accident. We were trying to get to this very famous village, but after giving the wrong name to the Taxi driver, we ended up in the wrong place (what do you expect?). Nonetheless, we managed to see a traditional folk village even if it wasn’t the one we wanted to be at.

After this excursion, we went to the Mask Dance Festival, to see what was going on as well as to find some food.



After searching a while, we eventually found  the famous “Adong Jjimdak”. We found out that it was located in town and none of the food stall offered Andong’s famous dish. The dish itself, did not disappoint. It was very delicious and well worth trying.
The next morning we set out to find the Hahoe Village, where we originally wanted to be at the previous day. This was a beautifully situated village, where people still live in the traditional Korean houses. The word Hahoe means “Winding river”, and you can see why they called it this. There’s a river that flows around the village. As part of the festival, they also have a mask dance performance at the village. Truly worth visiting and experiencing for yourself.



Later that afternoon, we headed to Seoul with the slow train to start our journey there. This allowed us to see most of the South Korean country side at a good pace. This part of the country was breath-taking as we rode on the side of the mountains looking down on all the little towns, lying in beautiful valleys carpeted with rice fields.
The next day, we headed to the Seoul Fortress wall, which is Korea’s version of the “Wall of China”. The view from the top of this wall was amazing. You overlook a big part of Seoul and just takes your breath away. Here are a few pictures to give you an idea why it’s a must-see place in Seoul.






That night we ended up at the Hi Seoul Festival, which was cultural festival full of little street parades and shows.




We ran into this amazing show called the “Trans-Express”. Here is a short clip showing only a little bit of there awesomeness.




So my Chuseok ended up being extremely diverse and wonderful experience. From a Mask Dance Festival, Cultural villages, beautiful countryside, train rides, a fortress wall, Hi Seoul Festival, Iteawon pubs and Myeongdong Shopping. I’m really glad I decided to go and do something over these few days. It was a lot of fun and well worth it.
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:)