Getting the ride from police, buying soju in every single store on the way, getting a VIP hotel room with jacuzzi without spending a penny, and moooore... - the most randon trip in Korea

The weekend of 28 and 29 of March, with two of my friends, Kristiina the Estonian girl, and Gergely from Hungary, we decided to go for a very random trip, without any plan, any destination or any ideas of what we want to do. The only unwritten rule was to say ‘yes’ to everything, whatever the idea was.

We met for breakfast on Saturday morning, to make some basic decisions before we leave, like for example which toll gates to choose, which direction we were going, what sign we should make etc.

For direction, we decided to roll the chopstick, which pointed north, so the decision was made - we were going north. Choice of toll gates was quite obvious now. But since the direction was supposed to be as random as possible, we decided to hitchhike with a sign saying,… Africa (아프리가).

Each of us packed very lightly, taking only the essential stuff, such as toothbrush, underwear, t-shirt to change, and we left.

We took the bus from north gate. After 30 minutes ride, we walked for another 15 minutes and soon we arrived at the tollgates. We got to our spot just behind the toll gates, got our sign ready and we started hitchhiking. Everything was perfect except for the fact that there was a police car 200 meters away from us. It was pretty obvious that they were gonna come and ask questions, and so they did. 

So after just few minutes at the tollgates police car approached us and they started asking questions. Of course we explained them that we were going to Africa – but first we want to go north… We could have easily talked our way out of this situation and keep searching for the ride, but the opportunity to get a ride in a police car was too tempting. They offered, that they would get us to northern tollgates of Daegu, so we said yes. We got into the car, they even gave us some canned milky tea and we left.

Soon we arrived at north tollgates, we were invited to some office, and they asked us to wait. We spent there around 40 minutes, one of the cops kept calling some people, we had no idea what was going on, we even thought for a second that they were trying to get us the ride. But they were not. After all that time, he just told us, that it’s illegal to hitchhike on highways in Korea…

Then we decided to walk to another, smaller route heading north. It took us some time to get there. In the meantime we decided to make another sign, that said Andong, because it was already around 5 o’clock and we were still in Daegu… We stayed on the side of the smaller route for quite some time, maybe around 45 minutes, but the only cars that stopped were taxis… We had to change something. 45 minutes is waaay too much time to wait for a ride in Korea.

Not far from where we were, there was a highway – it’s not the best idea to hitchhike on the middle of a highway, but that was our best shot. Just before a tunnel, there was a large ‘emergency stop bay’. We found a small gate to enter the highway, and again we started hitchhiking. After around 10 minutes the car stopped, it was a Korean air traffic controller, that was going to Andong - perfect. So after around 1 hour ride, we arrived in Andong. It was already around 6 or 7 p.m. The guy dropped us just in front of some kind of a market where we could find a lot of different street food and local products.

We walked around for a bit, got some food, and went for the first soju in a convenience store. That was only the beginning of the crazy night. For the next few hours, many random things happened.

We spent some time walking around downtown, buying soju in almost every single convenience store that we found on our way, we talked to some random Koreans that were obviously interested by our ‘Africa’ sign, we took plenty of pictures in random spots and decided to head towards Andong party district called Ok-dong. We asked some Koreans how to get there – they told us that we have to take the bus, cause it’s too far to walk there – I don’t know why but they always do that – even if you strongly stress that you want to take a walk, they will tell you that it’s too far, they will even tell that it’s impossible to walk – generally for Koreans many things are impossible (like for example hitchhiking, it’s not only impossible, but also very dangerous…)

So knowing the direction, we started walking towards Ok-dong - continuing our Soju journey. During our long walk, we took more random pictures, we were running away from some Ajummas (Korean old ladies), we got some soft drinks delivered by a random Korean guy on his scooter (don’t ask me why!), we visited a local market (where of course we got more soju), we joined a group of young Koreans heading the same directions, etc. etc.

At some moment, few hours later, we decided to have a rest in front of one of the convenience stores. From that moment we only have some vague memories, but I believe at that moment we were already quite tired and we started searching for a jjimjilbang to spend the night at. What happened next is crazy - but very Korean. Some random Korean approached us and I believe we asked him if there are any jjimjilbangs around. We assume that he figured that we were not in a perfect condition for a jjimjilbang, so he decided to take us to a nearby hotel.

We got to the hotel and soon we were sitting in a VIP room, paid by our new Korean friend. When we got to the room, first thing we noticed was a huge Jacuzzi in the bathroom, so without much thinking we just jumped into the Jacuzzi. Around 10 minutes later we heard someone knocking at the door. I jumped out of the Jacuzzi and opened the door. Who was that? Our new Korean friend decided to bring us some more beer, some noodles and Korean sausages – nice!

After some time in the Jacuzzi, after finishing the beer, we decided to call it a night and go to sleep. But before I went to sleep, I had this stupid idea of calling all my family members to tell the story – it’s not the first time I decide to call them completely wasted – I don’t know why I do that... In the morning when I found out I was talking with my Dad for around 20minutes I wasn’t very happy about it...

When we woke up in the morning, we were not really sure what happened the night before, we started watching some pictures and memories came flooding back. Soon we decided to leave the room, eat something and head towards Hahoe – Korean folk village.

For breakfast we had Andong Jjimdak, it’s a steamed chicken with noodles and various vegetables in Korean soy sauce. 

After breakfast we decided to head towards Hahoe village – UNESCO world heritage site. We took a bus and after 40minutes ride, we were there. We bought our tickets and entered the village – the fun thing is that there are different prices for Koreans and foreigners, foreigners have to pay more…

Andong is famous for Hahoe masks, we were lucky to arrive just in time for some mask dance performance – after watching around 15 minutes of the show we decided to leave and take a walk around the village.

The village was fine, nothing spectacular, but the village still has around 200 habitants, which is nice. It’s not some fake commercial creation, but it’s an actual village that has been inhabited for centuries.

The village is located on some kind of a peninsula – it is surrounded by a river from 3 sides, so after a walk, we decided to chill by the river. Of course the temptation to take a dive was very strong, so we decided with Gergely to do it. The thing is that it was still march and swimming in Korea is not very common, taking a dive in a river surrounding UNESCO world heritage place is even more unlikely so we had quite a few spectators. The water was freaking cold, but it was nice to have this refreshing swim after rough night.

 After the short swim we headed towards the parking, where we wanted to take the bus towards tollgates. What happened next, was just another random thing that happened to us during that weekend. We were supposed to take a bus towards tollgates, our bus arrived (there was 1 bus every 30minutes), but for some reason we were not sure if it’s the right one (later it turned out, that’s the only bus…). But as I keep saying recently – everything happens for a reason. Soon after the bus left, we were sitting on a bench with our ‘Africa’ sign, when two passing foreigners, interested by our sign, asked where we’re heading to. Our response was obvious, ‘Africe,… but first we need to get to Daegu’, they asked how are we planning to get there – hitchhiking of course. What we heard next, was magical, ‘do you want a ride? We’re going to Daegu’. Nice!

And this turned out to be probably one of the best rides in Korea so far, first ride with non-Koreans. It was a couple of English teachers, Niki from South Africa and David from UK. They were the nicest couple ever, super positive and funny. We had an awesome time together, during the long ride to Daegu (it was Sunday evening, which usually means huge traffic jam before the city).

That was a crazy weekend, we wanted plenty of crazy random things to happen, and we totally got what we wanted.


P.S. Gergely's feedback after reading this post: '...It's incomplete, but it's just impossible to write down all the random shit that happened.'