We arrived in Andong and made our way out of the station and onto the street. Our map (printed from the hotel website) showed the hotel should be about 500 yards down the road from the train station and opposite the bus station.

We came to the bus station were hordes of people were coming and going and there across a rather unruly pedestrian crossing across the bus station entrance. Koreans ignoring the red man were wondering across the crossing paying no attention to incoming busses, as the green man appeared the bus drivers failed to pay attention to the red light and were honking at people crossing the road – the usual Korean traffic chaos then!! We navigated our way across the road and began searching for our hotel. According to the map it was opposite the bus station but we couldn’t see it. We decided to wonder further down the road but upon arriving at a school marked much further upon the map it became apparent we had walked too far. There was not option but, using our non existent Korean, to ask someone where it was.

Emily had had the foresight to get the name of the hotel written in Korean by one of her teachers. Whilst I waited outside Emily went into a chemist showed them the Hangal (Korean writing) and asked directions. She walked out accompanied by a Korean woman who said she would show us the way. The Korean woman marched up a side street off weaving her way through the crowds of people gathered around stages set up in the streets. Emily and me followed behind trying desperately to keep up and navigate our way through the crowds without knocking someone out with our rather large backpacks!! The Korean woman called someone on her mobile and then came to a halt outside a Pizza Hut restaurant! She motioned to a guy inside the restaurant who was just sitting down to his dinner! He came outside and we realised he was American, she had decided to find someone who could speak English. He said his girlfriend was inside and she could speak both Korean and English and went and disturbed her from her dinner – how embarrassing! It is amazing the lengths some Koreans will go to to help you out! However it only took a few minutes for her to explain that the hotel was: “Just down there on the left.” We profusely thanked everyone involved using the little Korean we knew: “Kam-sa hammida,” and headed off in the direction of the hotel. It was lucky we asked directions and found someone so willing to help because our map forgot to mention the winding side streets we had to navigate around to find the hotel!

We arrived at the hotel and had a further battle when we tried to check in. We explained to the receptionist that we had a reservation to which he said: “No room, no room.” A nervous few seconds followed as we tried to explain we had booked a room under the name Emily. After looking confused for a while he finally said: “Emily, English!” (as if the English part hadn’t been obvious!) and found our reservation in his book. Consulting his pre-written notes he asked: “How long will you be staying?” before taking our money and checking us in for three nights.

We headed to our room and were mildly disappointed to find it wasn’t a traditional Korean room but happy to find that it was still very nice – much better than my flat! And everything from shampoo and conditioner to cleanser were provided for us!!! Amazing.

As we took-in the room I spotted a lamp on the bedside table that wasn’t plugged in. I was once gain shocked by Korean standards of cleanliness when I moved the bedside table (looking for a plug) to find a used condom wrapper down the back. How could the maid have missed it when cleaning? Not finding a plug I promptly but the bedside table back, leaving the wrapper behind it, and hoped that the contents of the wrapper had been disposed of in the proper manner!

We freshened and decided it was time to go and hunt out some food. After the hassle of finding the hotel we decided finding the festival site could wait until tomorrow.

Leaving the hotel we found that there was still stuff happening on the stages in the street. One was showing a Ti Kuan Do display – the traditional sport of Korea – and the other some dodgy Karaoke. The Ti Kuan Do was pretty spectacular with kids smashing through pieces of wood with their bare hands and feet.

After the Ti Kuan Do finished a Korean guy came on and started talking to the audience the Koreans were enjoying whatever he was saying and were shouting answers back at him, but we couldn’t understand a word so we went for dinner. We looked around a number of Korean restaurants but realised there was a problem when they didn’t have picture menus and we couldn’t read (or speak) Korean. Pizza Hut had an English menu so was an obvious choice!

The streets around Andong were filled with clothes shops. It would have been easy to spend a fortune there as you don’t see this around mine or Emily’s areas! We walked around with the intention of ‘eye shopping’ but made the mistake of heading into Face Shop – a Korean beauty products shop. The shop assistants were very helpful explaining what everything thing was (despite most of the labels being in English). The shop assistants whilst being helpful were overwhelmed by us. They kept telling Emily she had beautiful big eyes and as we were paying the assistants were stood behind me touching my hair!!!! This kind of reaction can make you feel very strange, they seem to think we are these amazing beings because we have big eyes and blond hair despite that we looked terrible after traveling all day and being very tired!!

* Posted by j150vsc on 23/10/2006.