The Last Korean Road Trip: Adventures in Hahoe Folk Village

Welcome back to our final road trip! To recap: with a year to spend in South Korea, our goal was to see as much of the country as possible. We planned our last big road trip for the major holiday week of Buddha’s birthday. Making several stops, we covered some well-known sites we hadn’t visited yet: Songnisan National Park, Andong Hahoe Folk Village, and the city of Busan.

As you will see, the weather unfortunately was not on our side. Indeed, this was hands-down the rainiest vacation we have ever taken, with significant rainfall on six out of seven days of traveling. Fortunately, a year of walking and hiking in all kinds of different weather was good training, and we carried on with our plans despite the regular soakings. In this post, we visit Andong Hahoe Folk Village on the Nakdonggang (river), home to descendants of the Ryu clan of Pungsan.

Andong Hahoe Folk Village (안동 하회마을)

From Songnisan National Park, it took us less than two hours to drive to the folk village. The village itself is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and in Korea is designated an important National Folklore Cultural Heritage site. Perhaps even more interesting, the village is still inhabited, 70% of villagers descended from the Ryu clan of Pungsan which founded the village 600 years ago. We wanted to visit because:

1) We really like to visit historic and culturally important sites, especially when they’re picturesque.

2) Hahoe (pronounced “ha-hwey”) is known for performances of its traditional mask dances.

3) I saw photos of Okyeon Jeongsa (옥연정사), a 500-year-old-hanok house that hosts guests near Hahoe, and I had to stay there!

The theme of this road trip being “rain,” the weather did not disappoint. However, we did see some atmospheric misty mountains and persevered despite the challenging dampness.

On a rainy Sunday, the village was very quiet. We saw lots of evidence of agriculture and village life, but the wise residents were inside staying warm and dry – unlike us! We wandered through the maze of small streets and enjoyed the ambience of exploring the many historic homes.

Hahoe literally means “a river turning around” as the Nakdong River flows around the village in an S shape. Usually, one of the big attractions is taking a boat from the village across the river and climbing Byongdae Cliff. Unfortunately, after the monsoon season in 2020 brought record amounts of rainfall to Korea, the boat has not been in operation. No cliff-climbing for us on this day!

We did visit the village’s most famous tree, which is over 600 years old and is said to be inhabited by the Samshin goddess. The tradition is to walk three times around the tree and then to write your wish for the goddess on a small piece of paper, which you can tie to the ropes surrounding the tree.

Byeolsingut Mask Dance Play

Despite the rain, Hahoe’s traditional mask dance was performed as scheduled. Thought to have originated in Hahoe in the 12th century, the dance itself is designated as a Korean major intangible cultural asset. When performed in its entirety, the play has ten “episodes,” each satirizing the nobility with different antics. Besides music and dancing, the characters sometimes would speak lines, which were helpfully translated into a number of different languages – including English – on a large screen. The village also hosts a mask museum where you can learn about the making and the meaning of the different masks.

Okyeon Jeongsa (옥연정사)

Perhaps the highlight of our visit to Hahoe Village was staying at Okyeon Jeongsa, a 500-year-old-hanok that is open as a guesthouse. Just across the river from Hahoe, the home has been in the same family since it was built. Indeed, the host during our stay was a 16th-generation descendant of the property’s original owner.

This is a place to stay if you want to sleep in the traditional Korean way. Our room was very comfortable and exactly what we wanted, but you would not want to go unprepared for sleeping on a mat and needing to leave the bedroom to visit the bathroom.

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It was incredibly peaceful to sit in the room or on the front porch and watch the mist roll over the mountains. The rain on the river and on the lovely garden surrounding the property added to the ambience and did not detract from our stay. We were only sorry we had just one night to stay in our cozy hanok room!

But What Did You Eat?

Ah yes, well I’m glad you asked! As we were not visiting the city of Andong on this trip, we were sure to sample its most famous regional dish while in Hahoe. Andong is known for jjimdak (찜닭), braised chicken in a sweet and spicy broth with potatoes, vegetables, and dangmyeon, Korean glass noodles made from sweet potato starch. One of these days I will try to make jjimdak, because I think it is my most favorite Korean dish.

Not to be outdone by dinner, the traditional Korean breakfast provided to us at Okyeon Jeongsa gave us the good start we needed for another day of exploring. Who says side dishes are just for lunch and dinner? Not this breakfast!

Did you enjoy our visit to Andong Hahoe Folk Village? You can see more photos of the day here. As always, thanks for traveling along with us!

In our next post, we keep driving south to visit South Korea’s second largest city: Busan.