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

Namsan and Mokpo

Day 5 of Quiring-family visit

Monday, July 2, was our last day in Seoul with my family. In the morning we hurriedly packed up the rest of our belongings in our apartment. Jonathan and my brother Tyler took a box of things to the post office to mail to Maine. Our friend Tete had told us we could leave our large suitcases - which my family would be taking back to BC with them when they flew home - in her apartment while we traveled to Jeju Island, so we took the rest of our suitcases down to her apartment below ours. Then Jonathan and I made a quick trip to the administration building to wrap up a few things, and said goodbye again to the people we met in the offices we went to. Finally we were back in our apartment, nearly ready to say goodbye to it. The last step before we left was to share the rest of our food with whoever could and would take it. Three of our friends who shared an apartment, Sandra, Rachel, and Leeza, were able to meet us at the apartment and between the three of them, they took the majority of the food we still had left over. After more hugs and some pictures together, they left to get back to work, and we finally headed out.

With all our backpacks and carry-on suitcases for our trip south, we caught two taxis to Namsan (South Mountain). Jonathan and I had been up Namsan two times already, but we really wanted my parent and Tyler to see Seoul from the top of the mountain, as well as go up N Seoul Tower and see the myriad love locks hanging all around the base of the tower. Since we hadn't been able to get there the day before, we decided to try to squeeze it in before we had to leave Seoul. Despite a lot of traffic, we finally got to the cable car station at the bottom of the mountain, bought our tickets, waited in a short line (during the wait we put all our bags in a storage room to pick up on the return trip), and soon were headed up the side of the mountain. Both my parents and Jonathan and I left love locks with the hundreds of thousands of others on the fences around N Seoul tower. Then we headed up the tower to see Seoul from the highest vantage point in the city.

Heading up the cable car

Cool mossy walls on the way up the stairs

Namsan is a popular destination for couples

Dad and Mum on a lovers bench (Photo from Glenda Quiring)

Christmas trees full of love locks (Photo by Glenda Quiring)

Our love locks - pink: parents and Ty & green: Jonathan and Ali (Photo by Glenda Quiring)

Seoul

Posing for a picture

N

Found Vancouver

All too soon, though, we had to head back down the cable car, and grab our luggage to get to the KTX (Korea Express Train) station. Our KTX train was leaving from a station in a different part of town than the one Jonathan and I had always used, so we weren't too sure how to get around. We hopped in two more taxis which drove wildly through heavy traffic in downtown Seoul, and got us to the station with about 15 minutes to spare before our train departed. We had already booked our tickets, but we ran into a slight snag when Jonathan went to the counter to pick up our tickets. The ticket information he had written down was not enough and he had to rush to a complimentary computer to sign in to the KTX website and find the information the ticket agent required. We were a little nervous about making our train, but Jonathan and my dad worked as a team to get the info and rush it back to the ticket agent. Seconds after handing the agent the info, they had our tickets and we all ran through the corridor and down the escalator. Our train was right in front of us as we got off the escalator and we didn't hesitate to jump onto the closest car. Once on the train, we walked through the cars to find the one we were assigned to, and a few minutes after finding our seats the train pulled out of the station, with us thankful to be on board.

The train ride to Mokpo was, as all KTX rides are, very pleasant and much too short. We got up to 305 km/h at a couple points earlier on in the trip, but during the latter half our speeds stayed down a ways as we were on curvier tracks and went through more tunnels and smaller villages. We arrived in Mokpo in about three hours and caught a taxi to a hotel we'd found in our guidebook. It was a good hotel with a nice view of the harbour a few streets away. After settling in and relaxing for a bit we headed out to explore that area of Mokpo. We wandered the streets, finding most stores already closed. That puzzled us since most Korean stores and restaurant we'd experienced stayed open later in the evening. After about 15 minutes of walking, though, we came upon a few pedestrian-only cobblestone streets with picturesque lights changing colour arching overhead. There we found plenty of stores and restaurants still open. Tyler was the one who got to pick our restaurant that evening and he picked a bustling Korean restaurant. We all ordered (rice for me as everything else on the menu indicated quite a bit of spice and heat), and our food came soon. Jonathan found a big dollop of pepper sauce sitting on top of his soup, which he mixed in with gusto. Within a few bites, though, he learned that had been a mistake. With each bite his mouth became hotter and hotter. A few minutes into his meal he wished he'd scooped half of the pepper sauce out and only mixed in half. My parents and Ty all tried Jonathan's soup and declared it the hottest meal at the table - and probably the hottest they'd ever tasted. After supper, we went next door to Baskin Robbins, which is very popular in Korea. Baskin Robbins stores are everywhere and are usually much cleaner and much more ritzy than in North America. Then after cooling our stomachs with ice cream, we wandered back to our hotel in the heavy mist/rain that had started falling while we were inside. Soon we were in bed ready to sleep before the next part of our journey in the morning.

Lights over the streets of Mokpo (Photo by Glenda Quiring)

Jonathan cutting his noodles before tasting his very spicy soup.
Noodle-cutting scissors are typical in Korean restaurants. (Photo by Glenda Quiring)

Seoul Trip

On Sunday the 4th of December, we went to Seoul to visit a friend of ours, who is working at the main institute, before she leaves back to the US in a couple weeks. Here are some pictures of what we did there!

Getting on the subway in Cheonan (In hindsight, we should have taken another mode of transportation to get to Seoul.
This stop-and-go subway took us upwards of two hours...)

Visiting a Korean traditional village in Seoul

Soldier Alison

Soldier Jonathan - which one is more intimidating?

Happy Korean couple :)

Old-style architecture

The doors are so short!

Inside a room with some really well-preserved Koreans

A moving chair

A bed?

Kitchen

A traditional game, behind a fire pit/oven/stove?

Jonathan trying out the top game

It's all in the wrist

But you have to wrap it the right way

Moonroof

Dinner!

Not sure exactly what this is

The floors were heated by fires under the houses - modern architecture uses hot water pipes

A pleasant pond

Nice railings. Also note the height of the floors, for the heating to fit underneath

A bed

Antique furniture

Mountains in the distance

The ornate information booth

This is outside an Italian restaurant

Couldn't resist the photo op!

Finally after walking for a while trying to find this, we found it!

On the way up the Namsan (South Mountain) cable car

A tree in a wood

At N Seoul Tower

Christmas tree at the base of the tower
(In Korea Christmas is mostly a holiday for lovers, hence the heart on top...)

One view from the top

Seoul

Seoul in the other direction... this city is endless

A paper model

Yet another view of Seoul

Cars

There was a small post office at the top of the tower where you could mail postcards or letters

Interesting heart-shaped oranges in the gift shop

Night lights

We took the KTX (bullet train) back to Cheonan

It goes pretty fast...

The engine - very quiet!

Near the Cheonan/Asan station - KTX tracks over the road