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