Suwon to Seoul to Incheon

Second-to-Last Day in South Korea
Wednesday, July 11

The morning after our walk around the Hwaseong Fortress, Jonathan and I woke up, packed our backpacks, left them at the front desk of the hostel for safe-keeping, and headed out into the mist. We found a different trail leading back up the mountain that had started our whole adventure the evening before and followed it. Along the way we stopped in at some interesting sites.

Flowers on the side of the road by our hostel

Brick flower art on the street

Cobblestone art on a wall

Impressive turtle painting (Who can spot the missing brick?)

Hole in the building? Nope, just some more neat art featuring the fortress wall.

Entrance to a small Buddhist temple on the side of the mountain

Temple grounds

Two-storey-tall golden Buddha statue

Lily in the morning dew along our hike up the mountain

Once we reached the top of the mountain, we quickly found the Bell of Hyowon (Bell of Filial Piety). We went over to a lady who was sitting in the booth near the bell and paid for our bell rings (2,000 won - about $2 - for 3 rings). No one else was around, so we had plenty of time to take pictures and videos of the experience. Yep, such a touristy move, but what else are you to do when confronted with a gigantic bell that is just begging to be rung??

Bell ready to be rung

Jonathan ready to ring the Bell of Filial Piety (I missed getting his first ring in the video below...)

Ali ready for her turn to the ring the bell (the wooden ringer was pretty heavy to wield...)

Close-up of one of the pictures on the bell. This is the Hwahongmun Gate over the Suwoncheon (Suwon Stream).

More pictures of the Hwaseong Fortress along the bottom of the bell

Signpost back on the streets of Suwon

Message in the sidewalk

After we each rang the bell, we hurried back down the mountain, collected our backpacks, and stopped at the nearby bakery again for some take-along breakfast. Then we caught the bus back to the train station and bought KTX tickets back to Seoul, our last KTX ride in South Korea. We so much enjoyed the privilege of using the Korea Express Train system while in Korea and knew we would definitely miss the convenience of getting to destinations so quickly and comfortably. Although we could have taken a slower (and cheaper) train back to Seoul, we wanted to ride the KTX just once more!

Once we arrived in Seoul, we easily maneuvered our way underground and through the Seoul subway system, which once had posed quite a hardship for us. As we rode the subway to Hwegi station I thought about how much we'd learned in the past eight months of living in Korea. Amazing how things that used to seem so difficult (finding our way around Seoul, traveling throughout the country, reading Korean) had become quite simple for us! At Hwegi station, we got off the subway and walked back to the Seoul Main Campus, which we hadn't seen for the past nine days. It was nice to be back there and we made our way to our guest room where we'd be sleeping that night (we had already vacated our apartment to make room for new teachers coming to teach at the SDA Language Institute for the new term). It felt good to drop our bags off in the guest room and relax for a little bit before heading back out. We made a quick stop to the teacher's lounge to use the computers there and it was nice to see some of the teachers, who were rushing in and out of the lounge between classes, again before we left Korea for good. After checking our e-mail and looking up a few outdoor stores in the area, we walked back to Hwegi station and took the subway to a shopping district not too far away where we spent some time looking for the last few things we wanted to get before our trip to Vietnam (cool clothing, pack covers in case we encountered any torrential rain, tiny towels, and some large water bottles). Thankfully we found what we needed and then headed back to our guest room to repack our bags with our new acquisitions and do any other last-minute things we needed to do before leaving South Korea. All in all, we had a pretty relaxing evening.

A slow train leaving the station as we wait for our KTX train to arrive

Korean-style toilet in our guest room

Since our apartments had western toilets, we never did figure out what all these buttons did...

Last Day in South Korea
Thursday, July 12

The next morning we grabbed our backpacks and went to the language building to say goodbye to as many of our fellow teachers as we could find. Then we went next-door to the ad building to say goodbye to a few of the people we knew who worked over there. It was sad to say goodbye to them, but we were also excited for our trip. After the goodbyes, we took a city bus a few stops to a large shopping mall. We waited at another bus stop for the shuttle that would take us to the Incheon International Airport, about an hour out of Seoul. The shuttle arrived soon and we had a pleasant drive to the airport, passing by familiar sights of Seoul and then out of the city to places we didn't recognize, since we'd arrived in South Korea at night and hadn't been able to see the sights coming from the airport eight months before. I was a little bit nervous that we wouldn't have enough time to get our tickets, get rid of our luggage, and get through security and to our gate before our flight, but there was no need to worry. Incheon airport is not like your average North American airport where long lines and lengthy waits are normal. There were no long lines to be seen and within minutes of arriving at the airport we had our tickets, had one less backpack to carry around, and were through security and on our way to our gate.

When we reached our terminal, we found a place to eat a relaxing lunch near our gate. Then, once we'd finished lunch, I looked at our boarding passes again and realized we were in the wrong terminal! Yikes, all that relaxing and we hadn't even been in the right place. We hurried to the next terminal over and found our actual gate as quickly as we could. We still did have a bit of time to wait, and then our flight was delayed another hour, so that gave us even more time. We spent the time reading and getting a few snacks with the last of our Korean won (after I saved a couple coins of each denomination), and ended up just leaving the last few small coins in a donation box near our gate. Finally our flight was called and the boarding process went pretty quickly. Then, after all that waiting, we were taxiing to the runway and lifting off the ground, actually leaving South Korea and heading off for our next adventure. It's always strange to be leaving a place where you've lived for a long time. Often it's a sad experience, but for us, while we enjoyed our time in Korea, we were pretty excited about exploring Vietnam and then getting back to North America.

The view as we got closer to the Incheon Int'l Airport, which is on an island

Our China Eastern Airways plane that would take us the first half of our trip, from Seoul to Shanghai

Goodbye South Korea. It was such a privilege to live in Cheonan and Seoul and explore your beautiful and mountainous country, to learn about your history and about the customs and traditions of Korean society. We will forever treasure our time and experiences in this fascinating country!

Next up: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Suwon's Hwaseong Fortress

Third-to-Last Day in South Korea

Tuesday, July 10, cont. (Read about how we got to Suwon here.)

After a couple hours of relaxation in our hostel room, we decided to go on a pre-dusk walk around the neighbourhood. We'd spied an interesting-looking trail to the top of a small mountain as we'd walked to our hostel after exiting the bus, and decided that would be a nice way to see the city before dark. Little did we know we would see much more of the city than we'd planned to by the time we returned to our hostel a few hours later...

We easily relocated the narrow paved road leading up the side of the mountain, and soon found that a stone staircase wandered between the road and a high stone wall. We climbed the stairs, stopping often to turn around and take in the view from higher and higher up the mountain, as well as snap pictures. A good 10 or 15 minutes of climbing brought us to the top where we found an entrance into the fortress. It was only then that I realized that we had been hiking along the Suwon Fortress, which I had heard about long before we arrived in Suwon.

Suwon's Hwaseong Fortress was built from 1794 to 1796 in preparation for the Korean capital city to be moved from Seoul to Suwon (which obviously didn't end up happening). "Located 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of Seoul and enclosing much of central Suwon, the Fortress includes King Jeongjo's palace Haenggung. The site was designated as a World Heritage site by the UNESCO in 1997. The Suwoncheon, the main stream in Suwon, flows through the centre of the fortress." - Wikipedia (Check there if you're interested in more history, including some sordid details.)

I was thrilled that we were able to see the fortress and encouraged Jonathan that we should continue walking along the wall. "I've heard there is a trail all the way along it," I said. "Maybe we can explore the whole way around." And so we did, not realizing that the perimeter of the fortress is 5.74 km (3.56 mi). Pre-dusk turned into dusk, which turned into evening, and then night, but we did eventually make it the entire way around the fortress walls. And I am so glad we did because the whole walk was pretty fascinating. After seeing the fortress, I was kicking myself that we hadn't come to Suwon earlier during our time in Korea to see the fortress and explore other interesting sights in the daylight. But I guess that just mean that we'll just have to go back someday... :)

Our starting point

Paldalmun - South Gate, under some construction

Plaque on the cobblestone street near the South Gate

Starting the hike up

Fancy lightpost

View of the southeastern part of the city from near the top of the first mountain we climbed

At the first guardhouse opening in the wall that we came to

We found a gigantic bell - Bell of Hyowon (You could pay to strike the Bell of Filial Piety)

Jonathan wanted to ring the bell, but it was after hours and the bell ringer (behind him) was locked.
We decided to come back in the morning when the bell was open for business again,
our last chance to ring one of these large bells before we left South Korea.

Seonodae watch tower

Seojangdae - A pavilion lookout into the heart of the old city

Suwon at dusk...

...and at night

City park and garden just outside the fortress walls

Hwaseomun - West Gate

In many other countries I might have been a bit nervous to walk along these trails at night, but not so in South Korea.
It's such a safe country, and there were many other people walking the trails and enjoying the warm summer evening.

Grand-looking watch tower - Seobuk Gongsimdon

Jonathan in the watch tower working to capture the picture below

Outside view of the grand North Gate - Janganmun

The other side of the North Gate after we walked through

Oh yep, and there's still more fortress to walk around...

The seven-arch style Hwahongmun Gate straddles the Suwoncheon (Suwon Stream)

Heron (we think) in the stream

Hwahongmun Pavilion just after the bridge

We stopped for a break in the pavilion and enjoyed listening to the Korean chatter of fellow walkers also resting there

Changnyongmun - East Gate

Bongdon chimneys

A large cathedral just outside the fortress walls

The path up the mountain where we'd started our hike a few hours earlier

The Sumun Gate over the Suwoncheon (Suwon Stream) on the other side of the fortress

Map of the Hwaseong Fortress and Suwon's old city - Click to view details (Courtesy of Wikimedia)

Just a few minutes after we crossed that last bridge we were back at our hostel and very ready to rest for the night. It had been a long walk, hiking up and down several small mountains and hills, but I was still glad we had been able to see and walk along the Suwon Hwaseong Fortress wall before we left Korea. Of all the places we visited during our eight months in Korea, I actually think the old city of Suwon inside the fortress was the most fascinating. I would love to visit again someday to see the area in the daylight and do more exploring!

Next up: ringing the Bell of Hyowon & our last day in South Korea