Korea for the 4th time - May and June 2022 - Page 3

Here is the highway through Daesong, it is actually a tourist town, with many little cottages in the hills.

There are also a few of these theme castles to get married in or whatever.

I think the area appeals to older people, a lot of the accommodation seems to be time share things, and this here is old person golf. You play with 1 club, the ball does not go up in the air, and the ball is bigger than a regular golf ball. Pollution was a bit less today.

This river has kayaking, water skiing etc.

Brown signs, hiking trail maps, I thought I was on the right path.

Someone with a nice bike is holidaying here. It was up a dusty dirt road though, which I am sure he hated.

Bear trap.

Hmm, where is my mountain. At this stage I assumed it was behind here and invisible.

Early on I was thrilled with the path. A forest floor without jagged rocks, all to myself.

Then some nice soft leaves, yet still a discernible trail, with lots of spider webs.

This is the summit, no view. It was just before getting to here which took roughly 3 hours, that I realised I was on the wrong mountain. I was not even half way to the peak I thought I would get to today, which would have been the wrong peak entirely anyway. I planned my way down from here, chose the loop instead of retracing my steps. In hindsight, bad choice.

The sliding path down. That is super steep, you can't tell from the photo.

Even steeper, but looks flat in photos.

Every time I spotted a ribbon, I was thrilled.

Nearer the bottom, progress slowed massively due to rocks.

Very steep, I looked like a cat trying to climb down a tree.

After many hours, I was back at the river, which provides no easy access to the train station, you have to walk a long way and back around along the highway, weird.

Daesong-ri station. I took a photo to remember my great day going to the wrong station.

The view back towards the Seoul tower from here is quite nice. I caught the subway but had I not already done too much feet related activities today, I would have walked over the hill.

The main street is not where the action is, it is all the little streets up the hill.

None the less, here is the main street. I stood in traffic that drives on the wrong side of the road to take this shot, risky.

Time to head back up some alleyways and see whats going down at 6pm on a Tuesday night.

Not much was going on, not even at the strangely named 'dead mans fingers'.

I could have had my dinner at eggslut, however its just an expensive burger joint. I am assuming the place is named after the woman on the poster.

Back in Myeongdong and clearly I have selected the wrong hotel. This one has robots at the check in desk.

And as is often the case, last photo of the day is my dinner, it is cubes of beef under the egg, rice, salad, pickled things. Very good, but a lot.

Great weather in Seoul this morning, seemed pretty clear to me that it was pretty clear.

This is the senior citizens centre. Just like Australia, boomers have all the cash in Korea too.

Starbucks premium, which roasts its own coffee and milks its own cows on premise, also has a traditional kneel uncomfortably while you sip area that no one was using despite every regular seat being in use.

Before heading to the station there was time for a wander around the massive Namdaemun market. It is mainly a clothing market that goes deep underground, but here is the fresh food section.

I have taken this photo before, the tracks of the main Seoul station.

And... the interior of the station. Korea still operates long distance trains completely on the honour system. There is no ticket scanning, no ticket checking, no barriers, just wander onto the train. It has always been like this and I do not know of anywhere else in the world where this is the case. People who live in Korea and regularly travel by KTX train say they have never had a ticket check in years of travel.

Here comes my Mugunghwa. Yes it is an old diesel. I think this class of train is the only diesel class remaining.

Inside it is dated, but very solid and comfortable, big seats. Hardly anyone onboard. This particular train goes to Daejeon, a city I went to last time I was here.

Suwon station is also fine, linked to a flash department store that had a great food section in the basement. Perhaps some more pics of that another time when I am not dragging around my bags.

One of the main streets of Suwon, I think, I have no idea yet really. I know there is a shopping street quite far from where I am, but then the city walls and lake area are in the opposite direction.

Now for a discussion on COVID and recycling. For lunch I went to Paris Baguette, along with 'Tous le Jour' they are the ubiquitous Korean owned sit in cheap bakeries. There are plenty of higher end options but I am no snob. And yes, they are Korean despite being all over Japan too. Anyway, Korea often leads the world in environmental things, they were the first to ban food waste, and it is now illegal to use a take away cup if you are sitting in at a cafe. However, due to COVID, everything is plastic wrapped and vacuum sealed in multiple layers with signs explaining how they take hygiene seriously to offset opinion about the plastic disaster. It took me a long time to get into my sandwich through its triple defence layers.

Here is the inside of the store, every single item is plastic wrapped, none of them used to be. If you buy a bag of 6 cookies, each of the 6 cookies is wrapped, then wrapped again.

And as a result, here is the disaster after I ate a sandwich and a donut.

Final pic of the day to appease my mother, my hotel room. Smaller than I thought. Very cheap, less than $40 per night Australian. The bathroom is very modern and large with a full bath, but due to weird angles, I cannot photograph it. All Korean hotels seem to have Japanese style space toilets. At first I thought there was nowhere to sit and work, but the bench thing under the tv is on wheels so you can pull it over the bed, or sit on the edge of the bed to use it as a desk, which I am doing now. Very comfortable actually.

The election roles on. More dancing.

Most of the apartment complexes feature shopping malls at the bottom and running through them. Very modern, very clean, not particularly Korean, probably more Japanese and Thai places than Korean.

There it is, Gwanggyo lake park, complete with the double g Koreans love to throw into words. Threatening skies would eventually deposit a small amount of rain for a few minutes, back to a week of sunshine tomorrow apparently.

There are lots of 2 person swing seats to swing on. I tried to make mine do a loop.

The tower was closed, booooo!!!

Around the lake there are some apartment building strip malls to urinate at, not buy anything. Please do not put Maru in the oven.

The water here is clean, it is a reservoir for drinking water fed by some nearby mountains that I intend to go to either tomorrow or the next day. Where I come from reservoirs have fences around them and are not surrounded by huge apartment buildings. While you can drink tap water in Korea, apparently nobody does, I am sticking to bottled.

Here is the housing association permitted bar. Not just a bar, but a "Craft Beer Pub". That is the entire thing. The obvious goal is to make it as unappealing to alcoholics as possible.

Here is my dinner. It was great. No rice! Lots of interesting mushrooms. Looks similar to something I might make at home, only it costs about half the price to eat out and have it here, even though it is imported Australian beef.

I was so cold, I caught a bus back. I moan about buses a lot, but with the Naver app on my phone I keep going on about, it is really easy. Drop a pin and it gives you the ten best options, and when you choose your preferred option, it shows you where the bus is live on the map. I am lead to believe this works nation wide. Thats all for now.

On my way to the wall I passed lots of huge new suburbs under construction. The old man guarding the construction entry gate was not happy I was taking a photo.

Suwon has its own sewer park stream. It is very long and quite nice and I detected no odour.

No chance of getting lost today, I decided to start and end the wall at the top, the hill is called Paldalsan. There are lots of big rocks surrounded by ropes and signs warning you to keep off, so I am assuming they are graves.

I found the wall. There are people on the other side of the wall, but I could not get to that side. I had to walk back down and back up again once I got on the correct side of the wall. I am always left on the outside of everything.

Before entering, and at many points along the journey, there are public toilets. This is an AAAAA+ national tourist experience.

Now that I am inside the wall, heres some more shots of the wall from near the top, actually this is the wall extension to the adjacent part of the fortress, a sign told me so.

There is Suwon, to answer a previous question, population estimates vary greatly because it is joined onto Seoul and various other cities, its just one huge urban area with the occasional UNESCO heritage site or mountain.

It was quiet on most of the wall today.

Suwon the other way, or some other city. You can see parts of the wall if you look hard. Also there is a major air force base just to my left, military jets were flying circuits all day, very common in Korea.

Tomorrows mountain. Seoul is in that direction.

I have descended down Paldalsan along the wall. I should point out, there is no cost to walk along the wall.

There are 4 main gates but probably 8 smaller ones. I think this is a smaller one, I read signs that went on about bastions and turrets and what not, but it all just looked like a wall to me.

Many of the wooden structures require you to remove your shoes, so I walked around them.

Lots of people pose for photos, I tried to stay out of their way, you can see one lady here striking a pose for a camera person out of view.

Remember to read right to left....

Here is the other end of the Suwon sewer stroll, I think they could market it as that, has a nice ring to it.

We are getting near the end of the wall shots, I promise.

This is mildly concerning. An archery field. No one was shooting arrows while I crossed over the top, but what if they sneeze as they fire?

In Korea you can appreciate the moon in the middle of the day.

I had now finished the wall and headed to the Hwaseong Haenggung Palace, where a Korean ninja show was in progress.

Ancient warriors also where masks.

No Korean palace is complete without lasers. The palace was a little underwhelming and had an entry fee, all of about $1.50.

Here is part of the wall that is no longer connected to the wall, right in the middle of the old market. It is probably the biggest of the gates.

Then I found an entire network of covered shopping streets and markets. I did not know they were here, I became lost, then I realised it also goes underground and became further lost.

Lots and lots of food.

Even more food featuring live and dead sea creatures.

I let the sea creatures be, and enjoyed a delicious chocolate mint cream sandwich. Really I did!

It is always a good idea to start the evening off right by gnawing on the entire leg of a pig.

Shopping street conveniently covered in shade cloth. There is a traditional market area around the station as well, but that is more of a morning thing.

One of the designated walking streets, which is exactly what a sign said. I somehow made it look a lot less busy than it was.

I was starving, so it was time for an early dinner of brown sludge and rice. I asked for stupid spicy, and it was. I was thrilled by this. By asked I mean I selected the maximum number of chillis on the ordering screen which came with some additional warnings.

Still going with the election. An army of 1's. Some non official members are beating drums and giving suspicious looking salutes behind me.

Here is one side of the Suwon station. It is enormous and goes far underground in all directions.

The other side has a Lotte megaplex that is even bigger and fancier.

Part of the Lotte megaplex is like an Australian style mall, except the top floor is at least 50 restaurants. Some formal, some not so formal and more inviting to a pleb like me. Maybe I will come back for dinner tomorrow night.

The Lotte department store basement is quiet, but nice. I think it is very new. More good places to eat. No eggslut to be seen though.

It took me at least 10 goes to line this up, I am half crouching to get the sign above my enormous head. This was near the exit to the subway, so thousands of people were streaming past watching me pull off this ridiculous feat.

Back at my hotel, and to end my early evening, a hike up 96 stairs (6 x groups of 16). Another great feature of Korea, free exercise opportunities all the time.