Today was supposed to be my first Friday with students, but last week president Park Geun-hye declared that August 14 would be a holiday to comemorate the 70th anniversary of Korean independacnce from Japanese rule. So what do a couple of fun-loving expats do with a free day off? We decided to take a trip to a UNESCO World Heritage site in the city of Suwon.
Suwon is located to the southwest of Seoul and is on one of the subway lines, so getting to the town was easy enough, but figuring out which bus to take and when to get off it was an adventure in itself.
As is usually the case, we got a little lost at first, which means we discovered a delightful area called Chicken Street (guess what they sell there). After looking around a bit we settled on an Chinese restaruant, mostly because it had AC. Turns out it was the best meal of my life - and cheap! I know we could have been more adventerous in our choice, because just down the street they were selling fresh octopus, and... well see for yourself
Just around the corner we came to a little river that led us directly to what we had come to see - the old Hwaseong Fortress wall. Built in 1794, it runs for miles around the old part of Suwon.
What could be cooler than the great wall of Suwon? Why a traditional archery center that is open to the public of course! Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for the many bystanders, we would have had to wait a couple hours to try our hand at archery, so we just enjoyed the efforts of others.
Another fun thing they have here is a dragon train to take you around to see the sights.
Further along was my favorite part - a pond with the biggest lillypads I've ever seen. They grow about four feet out of the water and sway in the breeze, flashing their silver undersides in an undulating wave.
Being a historic site, they have the occasional person in traditional attire. This guy may look less-than scary to you, given his costume, but in person he looked pretty tough.
From here we followed the river down through the city ...
past a very famous bell that is only rung once a year on New Years ...
to the palace, where they were having an AWESOME martial arts demonstration! These dudes were total badasses, kicking, flipping, and chopping up bamboo and other stuff with their swords and spears. It was like watching a Bruce Lee movie in person - hugely entertaining. And what made it especially cool was that we were the only non-Koreans in the crowd (something we are getting very accustomed to), which meant that this was more about preseving cultural heritage than about appealing to Yankees with dollars.
Nice form!
This guy is the world's most impressive and terrifying weed-whacker! Here it comes....
... and there it goes!
Check out the video of them doing their thing
All and all it was lovely - just another day here in Korea!
