Filming television for beer and free meals

Pretty much what I did all weekend and it was glorious. We were shooting a documentary on the historic town of Andong for "Korea Inside." This was for KBS, one of the four network giants in Korean television. Even though we were shooting for about 10 to 11 hours a day, sections of filming were punctuated by lavish meals full of the best food I've eaten since I've been in Korea (and all the beer I could drink). Even though I didn't get paid for it, I got a really awesome trip fully paid for which makes me hesitant to bitch.


Our first stop was visiting this badass old dude. His name is Dongsan Li and he was dirt poor when he was young so he followed these other guys who had food. As it turns out, these guys (who I can only assume were chewing wooden bubblegum and punching rocks for fun) walked 90 km to the nearest sea to get fish and then haul it back to their inland village. To keep it from spoiling they'd salt it (duh), but here's the catch: too little salt and you have crap, too much salt and you'd have food that tasted like a KFC double-down made with nutsacks instead of chicken. He is apparently the last surviving master of this art (of fish salting?, it probably doesn't translate into english). I watched him salt fish and it looked easy, so I proceeded to make an ass out of myself on camera and proceeded to ruin perfectly good meat faster than P.F. Chang's. Anyway, this guy's filthy rich now as he is the CEO of his own hand salted fish production company. His stores were EVERYWHERE in Andong. We ate at his restaraunt where we were served the fish he had salted for the camera just moments before. It was heavenly.

Next up, we went to this all natural paper mill. Paper mills don't really have the best reputations as places of pleasing odors, but surprisingly this paper mill did not smell like a Waffle House bathroom. Yup, because they make the paper without the use of any chemicals it really didn't smell that bad at all. We even made paper there, total field-trip style. Nothing else here really worth noting.

Our last stop in Andong was a traditional tea-ceremony in the Hahoe village. It took place in this awesome gazebo thing without walls that overlooked the river and mountains. We learned traditional tea-ceremony manners where things are done in a certain order and actions are taken deliberately and slow. When they asked my on camera my thoughts about the tea ceremony, I said something about peace and harmony with nature. They all clapped because of how awesome I am. The other kids couldn't appreciate tea as hard as I could.


Overlooking the Nakdong river


A typical home in Hahoe village

At night, the producers bought us a free meal at one of those Korean barbecue places. I proceeded to eat and drink as much as I could. The girl that was with us made fun of me because I was drinking so I made fun of her because she was dumb. Yay.


Simply describing what I did couldn't really capture how cool this little town was. Living there would really suck, but visiting it was off-tha-chain (or something equally as gangster sounding). This part of Korea was just extremely peaceful and awesome. Breath-taking views and awesome food make me give Andong two thumbs up. Next post will be about day two.