Day 2 begins early. I am well rested from going to bed early (thanks to a little help from a sedative I like to call studying). We drive to the local Kimbap shop to get breakfast. We each get a Kimbap and eat on our way to the shoot.
Kimbap (kim - seaweed, bap - rice) has it had been a big part of my diet while I was in South Korea. Kimbap is basically the same thing as maki sushi, without the usage of raw fish (the most common ingredients being rice, seaweed, pickled radish, carrot, sometimes beef or cooked tuna). You can get it at every convenience store, and most Korean restaraunts. It's dirt cheap, too. For about $1.50, you can get a roll of kimbap. It won't completely fill you up, but if you're on the run it's the best bang for your buck.
Our first shot was at the river in front of the hanhoe village. We just sort of did a couple circles in the river, but never actually crossed. I am wide awake, but I am being told I look tired. I guess that means I'm supposed to act more lively. Being on Korean television, or perhaps television in general, requires that you be extremely perky.
We then drive to a house on the other side of the river. I realize now that the first shot is going to make it look as though we crossed the river to this house (ignoring the fact that we also would've had to climb the mountain to get to it). Ah yes, the magic of television. The house turns out to belong to the patriarch of the Ryu family, a Yangban family that owns most of the property in Andong. The property he himself lives on is over 400 years old. We film the next shot in a study which is reminicent of the building we filmed the tea ceremony in. It's a wide open gazebo-like structure with two secluded rooms. Apparently, this building was used to teach the followers of the Ryu family over many centuries. The view is like nothing I have ever seen. This is definitely something many people only dream of. Seeing river, village, and mountains is blissful...except for the fact we were wearing Hanbok for the shooting, so I was close to heat-exhaustion in the South Korean monsoon heat (Hanbok is the typical garb of the Yangban, the S.Korean aristocracy and the former ruling-class since about the ??? century). Oh yeah, and it was Hanbok clothing meant for winter put on over the clothing I was wearing that day already.
The dude himself was definitely sensei-status. When we arrived, he sat there stoic and calm on the wooden floor, as if the only thing connecting him to the situation was the cigarette between his fingers. The smoke swirled around his face as he seemed to stare passed the floor (so that's what it looks like to never have to worry about money). He taught us about proper Yangban manners. How to bow correctly, how to sit correctly and all kinds of other important shit when you're an aristocrat. Bowing manner changes depending on the status of the people bowing in comparison to whom they're bowing to. He mentioned that he was at the 12th level, what level we were and how many levels there are in total, I have no idea. It all seemed extremely ridiculous. Next he taught us about the history of the property and the family...in Korean. One of the cameramen would seem to translate at random, otherwise I don't think they care if we knew what he was saying. I just smiled, nodded, and looked where he pointed (oooo aaaa). The last thing we did was the best. He schooled us in some chinese caligraphy. His looked good, ours looked bad. His wife must've seen the sweat pouring off of us, because she served us the most awesome iced tea. It was sweet, with a hint of plum. Oh and it had flowers in it...can't have tea without flowers in it.
We took some more shots of us on the property and then it was time to say goodbye. We just walked around the village after that. We eventually happened upon an old woman's house. She at first did not want to be on camera, but the producer must've sweet talked her because we then spent about an hour there just filming all the random stuff in her front yard. She had some interesting stuff. Melons growing on a thatched roof. A see-saw looking device which was used to pound rice. An old foot powered device to separate rice from the plants themselves. She was extremely nice actually. Served us mango juice and pretty much treated us like family. Definitely way different from Seoul.
Our last stop for the day was eating shark fin at some nice restaurant. You would think that this would be the best part, but it wasn't. I was still from earlier in the day (I failed to mention, we had gone to another restaurant earlier which was awesome). With all the filming, our food had gotten cold by the time we got to eat and man...they really wanted us to ham it up for this one and shark fin doesn't even taste that good. I mean, far be it from me to shit on the act of eating a shark, but it strikes me as novelty not good food.
This would be the end of my trip. It really was awesome and I want to thank everyone involved. Now I'll just have to see what a goober I look like in September.
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