Visiting Suwon

(pssst... did you know the pictures are little previews of something bigger? If you click on one, it gets bigger!)

Hello from Anseong.

This weekend is only two days long, there's no holiday on Monday... I was just getting used to these three-day weekends. Oh well, back to a five-day work week this week.

Being in Korea has presented me with wonderful opportunities to be a weekend tourist, and if I could find a tourism map in English I'd be set! I just keeping driving around, keeping track of my wanderings on my GPS so I can find my way home. This weekend I wandered across something truly amazing: I was driving through Suwon and came upon a giant structure with the road going around it in a traffic circle. I later found out it's the Paldalmun (aka, the South Gate), part of the old walls that surrounded the city before the city outgrew it's own walls.







As I drove further down the road I could hear music playing and a crowd occasionally cheering, and after circling the block a few times I finally found a parking lot next to the Hwaseong Fortress. The music was coming from a pipe player and a drummer, playing as a tightrope walker performed in front of the fortress. I took a bunch of pictures (natch!), but chose to return on Sunday to explore the fortress (I was running of of time...) Here's the guy walking the tightrope, a little wobbly at first...

Oops, I'm Falling! It's ok to drop the fan, but hold onto the microphone! I'm not sure but I think losing his balance is part of the show. Other than this slip, he had amazingly good balance.

One of the other guys in the troupe retrieved the fan the tightrope walker dropped.














After the close call the guy really needed to take a break to calm his nerves, he sat on the rope working the crowd for a few minutes.

Bouncing on the tightrope, this guy got some serious air! He was bouncing off of his butt, not his feet -- I can only imagine how long he had to practice before managing not to bounce sideways just enough to miss the tightrope on the way down, or land just wrong on the tightrope.

"Thanks, and keep coming back..." After the show he sat down and posed for pictures.












That's all I had time for on Saturday, seeing the show was a nice touch of the history and culture. I met some friends for dinner in Songton, Korean food again (surprise...). They have a cucumber kimchee that's unique, and the Korean spicy pork is very good.

Sunday 18 May 2008, in Suwon, South Korea

On Sunday the rain and I arrived in Suwon around 11:00am. It was wet and close enough to lunch time to get a bite to eat, so I stopped at a hole-in-the-wall place for lunch. You can see the menu above the chef on the right side of the picture (click it to enlarge), and if you can read it your Korean is much better than mine! I've been hesitant to go out to eat alone since I don't speak any Korean and usually the people in the restaurants don't speak any English: ordering food is like a box of chocolates. I don't know what I'm worried about, I haven't had anything that I wouldn't eat again in this country. Ordinary restaurant food is generally inexpensive, lunch today cost me 6,000 Korean Won (about $6).

I'm never sure what I eat but this tasted... just ok, nothing to write home about. I did recognize shrimp and egg fried into the rice, and the ubiquitous kimchee. The red soup in the bowl on the right was hot, both in temperature and spice and had bits of tentacles and tiny crab legs in it. The yellow things in the bowl are slices of pickled radish and are really tasty in a strange way - hard to describe, sweet & sour & crunchy. The white things in the bowl with the yellow things are slices of sweet onions. The red stuff in the far bowl is cabbage kimchee and this restaurant has a pretty good recipe, it's just a bit different than other kimchee I've had. The little puddle of black stuff in the middle bowl, God only knows... When I leave I'm either going to love or hate kimchee, but I haven't decided yet.


Waiting for the rain to pass, I took a few pictures of the street since it was a rare opportunity to take pictures without fear of being run over or trampled. The rain really kept people off the street, which you can see in the picture. This is a street in Suwon, not really a back alley but one of the small streets though the city. Imagine this street clogged with traffic trying to flow both directions and you can imagine what it's like on a busy day.

When I got to the parking lot of the palace the rain had eased up a bit, so I walked up the hill a ways. From the road on the hill there is a nice view of the walled palace, the far buildings with the same black tiled roofs as the gate in the foreground, are the buildings inside palace.





About 250 meters further up the road there's a bronze statue erected as a tribute to King Jeonjo the Great. I stitched together yet another panarama. The statue stands about 25 feet high, and as you can see the place was empty today.

I still haven't seen the palace - the storm came in and I got back to the car just as it started to really pour. I'll go back again soon to tour the grounds of the palace.


Back in Anseong I stopped at the LPG station to gas up the car and at the far end of the parking lot spotted an antenna growing out of a shipping container, and
the sign next to the door confirmed what I had suspected.

I stopped in and visited two guys from HL0LPM, the local amateur radio club, but the language barrier kept us from really having a QSO. We all understand QSL cards though, and I traded a photocopy of my license for their QSL card. One world, many languages.










Thats all for now, I've got to get some sleep and go to work tomorrow - it'll be the first Monday I've worked in a couple of weeks.

More later after the rain clears out.

Jerry.

Shopping and Tourism in Anseong

Good evening, today is Sunday May 11, 2008 and I'm still wondering how the stars aligned to put me in Korea.

I feel like a kid on Christmas morning. My coworker Erik snuck in a care package for me with our last shipment of machine parts: I may be in possession of the largest stash of whole-bean coffee in the city of Anseong, perhaps the entire province of Gyeonggi. I've only been able to find instant coffee in the markets, which is fine in a pinch but it's just not right. It is truly heartwarming to know people back home care about me.

I packed my coffee press in my luggage and a pound of coffee that lasted for about a week, but I didn't pack a coffee grinder figuring one could be found here in town. Lotte mart is where I've been shopping for most of my food and housewares so it was where I went to shop for a coffee grinder.

Lotte Mart is a lot like a Korean WalMart, but they do things differently here. On the road between parking lots is a man directing traffic and he's polite to a fault: he waves his arms furiously to stop the oncoming traffic, directs me to turn in to the parking lot, and executes a perfect bow as I enter the intersection. Finding a parking spot is easy, too, there are two ladies greeting people driving into the lot and directing them to empty spaces.

After parking, I walk over to retrieve a shopping cart and fortunately I have a 100 won coin with me - the shopping carts are locked together, and it takes a 100 won deposit to unlock the cart from the queue. When you return the shopping cart and lock it back in, your 100 won coin is released.

Once inside, Lotte Mart looks like a blend of shopping mall and department store, with various departments set apart by aisles and individual cash registers, but there's also a line of check stands for purchasing food and household goods.

The store is on two levels with an escalator between them with the shopping carts riding on the escalator with the people. To keep the loaded carts from mowing over people downhill, the ridges on the wheels nest into grooves on the escalator belt, allowing the wheel fenders to lock onto the belt. Ingenious.




I was partially correct about finding a coffee grinder, Lotte Mart does indeed sell coffee grinders... unfortunately, they're of the hand-crank variety. Fortunately, they have a housewares section where I found a small blender that does a bang-up job on coffee beans. This morning I brewed a fresh pot of coffee to drink with breakfast. Life is good.

Erik, when you come to visit you're always welcome to come by for a cup of coffee. I even have a spare mug.

The Anseong Machum Museum

I've been driving past the sign pointing toward the museum for a few weeks now and I finally stopped in Saturday afternoon to look around. It's a nice place, costs 500 won to get in, and most of the displays have an English and Japanese translation of the Korean text. I learned that Anseong is renown for its metalworking, especially white brass. There is a large collection of pieces on display from the brass foundries that were in Anseong, along with displays showing how the artisans made the pieces. Some of the culture surrounding the use of brass tableware is also explained.

There are some other pieces that I found interesting also, like the antique mousetrap on display. The round inside portion is about seven inches around and looks quite heavy. There wasn't an explanation of how it worked, I can only imagine... poor mouse.




I revisited the totems today, and someone has repainted them! I took a bunch more pictures and it was sunny this time:






And finally, I'll sign off with a self-portrait. Mental note: the bright orange shirt really stands out when taking pictures along a road - traffic notices. It's also stands out when trying to take pictures of wildlife - birds notice, and flee.











That's all for now, it's getting late and I've got to rest up since tomorrow is another holiday, it's Buddha's birthday.

Jerry.

Good morning from Anseong! Today is Monday 5 May 2008, and it's Children's day holiday here in South Korea. I'm writing my blog off-line since I still don't have internet access at home. I'm told progress has been delayed because of the holidays. The closest telephone booth is two blocks from my apartment, so it's an effort to talk to people back home. Hey, I found a wireless connection just outside my apartment building, so I can post blogs!

Sunday was an eventful day: I started out watching my laundry tumble, one more reason to love a front loading washing machine. There's something mesmerizing about seeing my socks roll around one way then the other for an hour. (yes I am easily amused... why do you ask?)

Jerry gets adopted

After spreading out my laundry to dry I took a drive around town to get acquainted with the lay of the land. Near the Anseong police station, I found a traffic circle with a park and a small hill in the center. Always the curious one, I parked, grabbed my camera an walked to the top of the hill.

The view wasn't anything spectacular, it's only about ten meters above the surrounding farmland and trees pretty much obstructed the view. As I was walking back to my rental car I saw a family had set up a blanket and a gas grill to cook lunch. One of the gentleman motioned me over and invited me to sit down and join them for lunch, which I graciously accepted.

I took off my shoes and sat on a corner of their blanket joining the family for lunch of grilled pork, mushrooms, and garlic cloves wrapped in lettuce leaves, spiced with Korea death paste and some sort of grass salad. Cherry tomatoes were passed around, as were home-made sushi-like rolls. I drank water with lunch, the two men sipped soju, the ladies drank beer, and everyone toasted their good fortune with each refill of the paper cups. It's a custom to never fill your own glass, and I watched with amusement as one man would fill his friends cup, then hand the bottle over so his friend could fill his, then another round of toasts. Dessert was some sort of melon, and it too was quite tasty.

Small talk was difficult since I don't speak a word of Korean yet, but the two girls knew enough English to translate for us. I helped them clean up and felt welcome in Korea for the first time since I arrived. I may never meet this family again, but their kindness really made my day.

Next stop: Geocaching!

Spoiler alert! If you're going to search for this geocache, you might want to stop reading. The specific hiding spot isn't shown, but the general location is discussed.

Not far from Anseong is the “Korean Totem Pole” geocache. If you don't know geocaching, check out the www.geocaching.com web site and take a look around – it's basically a treasure hunt game using a GPS receiver to guide you to interesting places.

There must be some significance to the totem poles along this road but I don't yet know what it is, there are easily fifty of them standing in groups of three to fifteen along both sides of the road for about half a mile. In the first picture you can see my rental car parked at the far end, for size comparison. The poles range from six inches diameter to about ten inches and are up to about fifteen feet tall.

This sign is at the bottom end of the road:

The problem is not that there's a duck on your head...

Scary faces:

“Korean Gothic” (with apologies to Grant Wood):

I did find the geocache, signed the logbook and left a travel bug I've been carrying around for a couple of years.

Enough totems for today, it's time to head off to Osan air base for dinner. I met JR, a friend of a friend, at the entrance of Osan air base. We went to the Mustang Club for dinner and their steak served sizzling on a platter was very welcome for this American far from home, with no Kimchee in sight anywhere. After dinner JR gave me a quick driving tour around the base, showing me the new buildings and the golf course. He introduced me to Roger who is a motorcyclist and has stable full of bikes, including a couple of loaners. Roger invited me to join him, riding his BMW f650gs through the mountains some weekend this summer – I could be on bike again soon, touring Korea! I may have to ask my friends back home to ship my helmet and jacket.

So that was my Sunday this weekend: meeting new friends, seeing new places, geocaching, getting absorbed in the Korean culture. I'm really beginning to enjoy this.

Talk to you all soon,

Jerry.