Andong

The river bends all the way round this village. The Pungsan Ryu clan has lived here six hundred years and still does. You have to take a shuttle bus between the car park and the village. Some houses you can walk into; others are viewed from outside the wall.

The view of Hahoe as a whole exists only from the cliff on the far bank. The ferry across from the village takes five minutes; driving round takes over twenty. When the river is high the boat does not run at all.

A pavilion called Mandaeru frames the river and the cliff behind it as though they had been hung on a wall, and sitting on that floor looking out is very nearly the whole visit. Part of the access road is unpaved and rough after rain.

This is where the scholar Yi Hwang taught, and the picture on the back of the thousand-won note. The little pavilion across the water sits on what looks like an island because the dam raised the river and its platform had to be built up to match.

A wooden bridge below the Andong dam, 387 metres long, among the country's longer timber spans. Its shape comes from a Joseon grave: a letter a widow wrote to her husband, and sandals she wove from her own hair. A pavilion sits at the midpoint.

When the Geungnakjeon hall was taken apart for repair in 1972, a document turned up inside recording a rebuild in 1363, which is how its age is known. The temple is partway up a hill, ten minutes uphill from the gate.

Several independence fighters came out of this household, and the colonial authorities ran a railway line straight through its yard, taking off the outer wing. The track was lifted in the 2020s and the house put back the way it was.

You reach the pavilion by crossing a narrow stone causeway laid over the stream. Since it appeared in a television drama there is a queue to be photographed on it. After rain the water runs over the top of it.

It is performed on fixed days at the hall by the entrance to Hahoe village, and there is no charge. The core of it is mocking the aristocracy and the scholar class to their faces. At some point the performers pull spectators in, so take a front seat knowingly.

Twelve metres tall: the body is carved into a natural boulder and a separately cut head was set on top of it. Locally it goes by Jebiwon, the name of the old post station here — the same Jebiwon named in the folk song Seongjupuri.

Old houses of the Gwangsan Kim clan, moved up the hillside before the Andong Dam flooded their valley. Takcheongjeong and Hujodang still stand, and several houses take overnight guests. Once day visitors leave in the evening, the courtyards go very quiet.

A private museum by the Hahoe ticket office hanging Korean masks beside ones from Asia, Africa and Europe, grouped by country. One room explains each Hahoe mask character; stop there before the dance show and the dialogue makes far more sense.

A city museum across from Woryeonggyo with dioramas of Andong weddings, funerals, rites and games. Outdoors stand thatched and tiled houses and a stone bridge moved from villages the dam drowned. Arrive near sunset, then cross to the lit bridge.

Built in Wonchon village, birthplace of the poet who wrote Gwangya and Cheongpodo. His pen name Yuksa reportedly comes from 264, his prison number. Displays follow him to his death in a Beijing jail in 1944. By car, Dosan Seowon takes about 10 minutes.

A Unified Silla tower of fired-clay bricks, held to be the largest and oldest brick pagoda left in Korea and designated a National Treasure. Imcheonggak stands beside it, so one stop covers both. With the Jungang Line tracks gone, nothing blocks a lap.

Running since 1997, about ten days every late September into early October. Korean mask troupes and overseas companies gather at the Talchum Park in town, and Hahoe stages its rope-fire show after dark. Visitors may join the masked street parade.

A pontoon path laid across Andong Lake at Yean-myeon, about a kilometre long. Beneath it lie the old Yean town and school grounds drowned by the dam, and a rest stop midway tells the school's story. In strong wind the deck sways and the walkway is shut.