Andong Gu Market and More

Still in Andong, Korea, I started this morning by visiting Andong Gu Market. I didn’t choose it because it’s a top-rated site. It’s not. Neither of my guidebooks mentions it. I found it on TripAdvisor. When I searched for things to do near my hotel, TripAdvisor listed Andong Gu Market in the number four spot, with a 4.0 rating based on only seven reviews.

(TripAdvisor lists it as “Andong Old Market.” The English interface of the Korean mapping app I’m using here calls it Andonggu Market. But some English on the large sign atop the entrance of the market names it as Andong Gu Market. Some searching on the web found sites that listed it as Andong Gu Market. So Andong Gu Market it is.)

The reasons I chose Andong Gu Market are that it’s indoors and close to my hotel. Indoors and close were desirable because a steady rain fell on Andong this morning. Rain would, no doubt, prefer to rise. Who wouldn’t like to soar rather than tumble? But falling is what rain does. It has no choice. It must exist in the moment and be what it is. There’s probably a lesson in that. I might figure it out one day.

The point is, I didn’t want to traipse around in the rain more than necessary. My mapping app told me that the market is only a six-minute walk from my hotel. So, off I went, rain jacket on and umbrella in hand.

After Andong Gu Market, I did a little roaming around in the rain. But I kept it to a minimum. I’d mention in this introduction what else I saw this morning, but you’ll learn about them soon enough. If I introduce them here, it will sound even more redundant than is the case in many of my posts. “Even more redundant” is too high a bar for me to jump over.

I should stop to say that I’ve been very lucky on this trip when it comes to the weather. I’ve had a few dark and gloomy days, but exceptionally little rain until this morning. I guess I was due.

Andong Gu Market

Andong Gu Market is a covered market that consists of one long aisle and one shorter cross aisle in the middle. The long aisle is covered for the whole length of the market, the equivalent of a couple of blocks.

The ceiling is arched, with translucent yellow panelling. At least, I think the ceiling is fully arched. I couldn’t see the centre section of it for the length of the aisle because there is a wide, flat, horizontal panel that hangs just below the centre of the ceiling’s arc. The horizontal panel is maybe one-half to two-thirds of the width of the aisle.

The middle of the panel is mostly blue, but with some clouds and flowers sparsely painted on it. The outer edges of the panel have single-hued coloured strips of light running the length of the aisle. That is to say, it’s single-hued at any one time, but that hue subtly changes occasionally.

At the intersection of the perpendicular aisles, big-screen TV monitors hang from the ceiling. There is also a circle of uniformly spaced light tubes that are predominantly vertical, but all the tubes symmetrically curve inward, so the top of the circle of light tubes is smaller than the bottom. These light tubes put on a light show that is, to employ an understatement, less nuanced than the changing of hues on the horizontal panel. It’s overly vibrant.

The cross aisle was, for the most part, the same as the main aisle. But walking along what, from the centre, looked like a single aisle, I learned that there’s a gap on one side of it. I had to walk outside for more than a few steps to get to the continuation of the aisle. That continuation had a plain, white translucent ceiling, so I’m not sure it’s technically part of Andong Gu Market. But it was otherwise similar to the rest of the market.

The vendors at the market included sellers of garments, bags, and various foodstuffs. Some stalls and restaurants served cooked food for eating there.

It is an okay market, with a modicum of charm, but I’ve seen better.

Wow, that came off snobbish, didn’t it? “I’ve seen better.” All I meant is that I’ve been to other markets, including, but not exclusively, on this trip, that were significantly larger and oozed more charm despite, or maybe because of, those other markets being marginally grungier.

I didn’t spend a lot of time in Andong Gu Market, hence the additional traipsing around in the rain after I left.

I then headed off to see a pagoda.

Andong Unheung-dong Pagoda

Even with my mapping app, the Unheung-dong Pagoda wasn’t trivial to find. It’s behind some buildings, across a small parking lot, and in a small plot of lawn.

It gets no respect. It deserves more.

The Andong Unheung-dong Pagoda is far from huge. It’s a five-storey (short storeys) brick pagoda that, as pagodas go, is kind of squat for its diminutive size, which lends it a dignified cuteness.

According to a bilingual sign by it, the pagoda was constructed in the Unified Silla Period (668-935), but it’s not as tall as it used to be. That can happen in old age. I think I’m marginally shorter than I used to be, not that I ever attained full adult height.

The sign explains that it was originally seven storeys, but it was damaged over the years, particularly during the Korean War, and was restored in 1962 as the five-storey pagoda that’s there today.

I didn’t spend a lot of time there either, but the Andong Unheung-dong Pagoda was worth a quick look even in the rain.

Sinse-dong Mural Village

Andong has something of a mural village, Sinse-dong Mural Village.

Jaman Mural Village in Jeonju, which I saw earlier in this trip, should not feel the least bit threatened by it. Sinse-dong Mural Village has far fewer murals. And they are sparser than at Jaman Mural Village; far fewer buildings participate.

The murals at Sinse-dong are also less vibrant and whimsical. However, there was a music-themed sculpture, essentially a 3D mural, that was somewhat on the whimsical side of the border of whimsy.

It’s possible that I missed some murals at Sinse-dong. Once I no longer saw any more of them ahead of me, I turned around and returned the way I came. However, because of their comparative sparseness, it’s possible that if I continued along or maybe explored some neighbourhood side streets that didn’t appear from just glancing down them to be populated with murals, I would have found more.

With the rain not yet stopped, although with promises that it would this afternoon, I wimped out back to my hotel. There, I began to type a few of these words before I nipped out for some lunch to fuel me up for a hopefully drier afternoon.

More photos from Sinse-dong Mural Village: