Alright so after our semi-conscious night, we had to continue to our next destination! we were to meet our 2 other friends at suwon~ well so we checked out of the motel.. this was what the entrance looked like.
while walking out to the main road, we found a really big jijingbam (spa); maybe it was the one the ajuma was trying to recommend us last night. but we would have probably died there.. zomg.
i managed to convince my friend to take a cab since we didn’t have any time to waste. the buses to suwon were quite limited.. about 1 – 2 hours between each.. we missed the earlier bus so we had to wait for the next one. had breakfast at the convenience shop! my favourite banana milk. i’ve decided to drink the ‘lite’ one because the normal one was really sweet.
so after we reached the terminal, we had to take a bus from the bus terminal to suwon train station. we took quite some time to figure out our way around =/ once we were done it was like 2+ when we met our friends.
went to grab some food because we were starving. i remember buying a belgian waffles. anyway, the pictures are gonna be of low quality from now on because i did not bring my camera charger.. so all the pictures were taken using iphone 3gs. my bag was freaking heavy though. because i brought my polaroid. heh.
so after food, we took quite some time to find the bus stop, and apparently we took the wrong direction of the bus. but we were lucky as it was a loop bus.. we just took like 45 mins to get to our destination when lonely planet quoted 5-10 mins.
According to lonely planet, on the left of the station take buses 11, 13, 36 and 39 to go to Paldamun. When you reach there, everything should be within sight.
it wasn’t too hard to find.. the palace was quite obvious and we just walked towards it once we alighted.
anyway, we saw a free english tour for groups of 4 and above. so we requested for one. i THINK the ticket was 1500~2000w; still quite reasonable.
Brief history of this place was that King Jeongjo wanted to move the capital from Seoul to Suwon so he decided to build fortress walls that surrounded the city but he didn’t succeed because he died eventually? We also visited the Hwaseong Haenggung, a palace which the king built for his parents or something around that line? Apparently da chang jin was filmed there or something. We saw some standees from that drama.
anyway the guide was a volunteer~ think he was in some shipping business.. worked in seoul or something. can’t really remember but he gave us a very comprehensive explanation of the place.
well, the capital was supposed to shift from seoul to suwon under this king but due to complications, it did not occur but there was a really sad story about how his father got killed by his brother or something due to political struggle. but eventually he still became king? i’m not sure! so he shifted his father’s tomb to this place or something. but the king was really filial~
anyway just some architecture of the place.
and apparently da chang jin was filmed so this was the collection of her filming clothes.
after the tour end, it was pretty late. maybe 5-6 plus but we decided to give the fortress a run. the fortress was very near the palace, but then again fortresses are high up on the hill. it drizzled slightly, so the terrain was slightly dangerous but we were okay. but we were late so we missed the tram ride. anyway we saw like people trying to pick things from the ground. i’m not sure what it was but i think it didn’t taste nice. i didn’t try it. haha.
So after climbing up this rather steep path, the view was really pretty from the top but it started to drizzle.
we took shelter in a place and then a girl started talking to us! well~ she was from harbin, china. coming to korea to study university in daegu but she was still doing her language course.. taking level 3 at the moment if i didn’t remember wrong. she was with a friend, who didn’t look young. well, he drove her here. hmm. but since we both could speak chinese, we strike up conversations because of the rain.
eventually, we loan them an umbrella and continued the walk of the fortress together!
at first i thought that there were no exits down the fortress, meaning that we had to walk the whole 5km.. but seems like there were exits down quite frequently. so as it was getting late and probably dark soon. we left without completing the fortress.
well, this time i failed to convince them to take a cab. we kind of walked around aimlessly because we were half lost and after a long while, we managed to find a bus stop and we stopped at a place where there’s civilization. had dinner there, this was special toboki. heh. and i had my cidar. ajuma was really nice to us, saying that she was so happy that she have foreigners in the restaurant.. saying that we were pretty and everything. HAHA.
well, after that, we went to shop around the area but one stationary shop as enough to kill us. they were selling items similar to artbox and i bought a lot of rilakuma things there! adding on more weight to my already heavy backpack. argh. but it was money well spent. the notebooks and files were too cute. but i gave most of them away.
then we took a bus back to the train station~ i remember i was still desperately in search for my iphone back protector to protect my khun’s singature.. but everywhere i went.. they didn’t sell it =( =( =( it was today which i finally gave up and bought one from gmarket.
anyway, the train journey was about 45 mins long, back to naksongdae, and to dorm.
it was a tiring tiring tiring 2d1n but i had my fair share of makkoli. heh.
