Hwaseong Fortress

Went with Valerie to Hwaseong Fortress today. This also marks my first trip out of Seoul since I got here 3 weeks ago. Hwaseong Fortress is located in Suwon, Gyeonggi-do, which is just outside of Seoul. It took almost 2 hours to get there from Anam station via the subway. At first, we didn't get a very good impression of Suwon, cause the subway was passing by all the rubbish dumps and soil landfills, but when we got out of the station, we had quite a shock, cause it's very metropolitan in Suwon, and everything is very built up, just like Seoul.

Suwon is the capital city of Gyeonggi-do, and has been earmarked by the government as a special tourist zone. We found the Suwon citizens really friendly and inhibited; a rather big contrast to the Seoulites. For example, a old lady overheard us trying to find out where the Hwaseong Fortress was, and actually led us to the correct direction, although she did not speak a word of English at all. People in Suwon seems more eager to help, and the restaurant ajumas are all very friendly. The ajuma in the first restaurant we went to was so friendly and kept talking to us during our meal there. We even got free coffee after the meal! And the coffee (from Maxwell House) was amazing! I have never tasted such good coffee (serious!) in my life!

Hwaseong Fortress (not a palace, as stated by the name), is a really long wall (like a miniature Great Wall of China) that encircles the city centre of Suwon. More information about its history can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwaseong_Fortress

When we got there, there was actually some filming going on. If I am not wrong, its for some tourism advertisement for Suwon. Quite impressive to see guards dressed in ancient costumes at the fortress, although they were joking and playing around when the camera was off. Rather interesting scene.

Interesting fact when I got there: Hwaseong Fortress is actually the filming location of Dae Jang Geum! I was so surprised when I saw stand-up cutouts of 长今 and 闵大人 in the fortress itself. The filming location itself was called Hwaseong Haenggung, which in reality is an actual palace for the late King to stay during his official duties out of Seoul. There are plenty of Dae Jang Geum information in the palace, and in each palace quarters, there are stamping machines where we could stamp special trademarks of that quarter on paper.

The day was horrendously cold today, and because there are very little buildings to shield us from the wind, we were basically freezing our asses off. We were so cold we decided to take a trolley ride, as seen in the bottom picture. Each cabin is actually designed to look like the king's sedan, for greater authenticity. It was such a wrong choice, cause the wind got even stronger as the trolley moved. I had to put on my gloves and wrap my head with my scarf, and it still chilled me to my bone. The ride though was super enjoyable (less the wind), and we got a really good view of the fortress wall, and the surrounding city.

Along the way on the trolley ride, we rode past some high school. The uniforms that the students wear are so much nicer than the ones found in Singapore. Of course, the weather plays a big part in the uniform design, but looking at their uniforms (shirt, pants, tie, vest and blazer) makes me so jealous, especially when I had to wear shorts for 4 years and 3 months.

The fortress stretched so far that Val and I walked for around 4 hours. Over here, there's an archery range where people can practice their shots. We were kinda scared that the arrows would hit us, but the wind blowing at us was way worse. Especially when we were up on the fortress and there was absolutely nothing to shield us from the fearsome wind.

My dinner! We found the restaurant, Jang Gu Shi Tang, cause the wind was so strong and blowing directly at us so we had to find some shelter to rest for a while. Interestingly, Jang Gu stands for 蜡笔小新 in Korean, and Shi Tang just means 食堂. The owners of the restaurant are really nice and friendly, and our side dishes, for the first time, contains fried fish! Fish as panchan (伴菜) is super uncommon, and we even had ttokboki (not sure of the spelling), which is fried rice cake in hot sauce! Usually those are sold for $1 or $2 outside, but it's free here, so the meal (which came up to $4.50 per person) was really damn hua. Towards the end, the nice uncle even served us free coffee!