Ann's Visit: Suwon and Busan

Busan, is Korea's Second City. Located at the South Eastern tip of the peninsula it is a fishing village of 3 million people. Yet, before we made it to Busan, Ann and I stopped in a town called Suwon. Suwon is the provincial capital of Gyeonggi-Do. Why, per se, would someone want to stop and visit Suwon? Well, it is in this city that there are three cultural sights to go see. The first and most important sight is what is called the Korean Folk Village. One of the hills in the city the Koreans have established a village that is run the way the Koreans ran it in olden times. It's very much like Colonial Williamsburg only absolutely nothing like it. This is a place that Korean's and foreigners go to see what it was like to live in Korea during older times. You can witness and partake in many Korean cultural things here. Needless to say it's an important sight to go see for anyone who is trying to obtain an idea about old Korean culture.

When we arrived in Suwon on Sunday we headed out of the train station to tourist information. It is here that you purchase tickets to the Folk Village. When we arrived it was raining rather steadily so Ann and I asked if the Village was still open in the rain. To this the nice ladies at the counter responded yes. Excellent we thought, we'll just run over there in the rain and have the whole place to ourselves. Well, so we thought. As we were riding in the Taxi to the Village the Heavens opened up. Roads were flooding and hillsides were eroding all across town. When we arrived at the village there were two rivers of muddy water running out of the entrance and exit. In this downpour Ann and I figured, to hell with it, let's go get wet and explore the village. As we walked towards the entrance we saw several men standing at the entrance in Storm gear telling us that the park was closed due to the rain. With this information we hopped on the free shuttle bus back to Tourist Information.

With our refund in hand we headed out to explore some of the other sights the city had to offer. Notably, we went and visited Hanggeung Palace, Hwaseong Fortress Wall, and the Paldamun Gate. These were nice to see and run around, primarily because once again we were almost the only tourists out and about. Everywhere we went we more or less had the place to ourselves. Hanggeung Palace, is not a palace in the sense of Versailles or the Hermitage. It was primarily used as a residence for lesser members of the Royal Family and as a rest stop for the King and Queen when they were travelling through the area. The reason that this city was chosen was because of the fortress that surround it. The wall was quite impressive as was the Paldamun Gate. With our time in Suwon at an end Ann and I hopped a train down to Busan.

After checking into our Motel in Busan, Ann and I headed up to Pusan National University for Dinner. The plan was to have a street food meal. Street Food in Korea is a way of life. Any area that boasts a night life will always have numerous stalls selling weird and delicious food late into the night. The area that we chose was PNU. After wandering the streets for an hour and trying a few things from the stalls we happened upon the gold mine. A restaurant the served street food. We purchased lot of Mandu (Korean Pot stickers) and I ordered some Blood Sausage with Liver and Tripe. Yes Mom I actually willingly ate liver and it was delicious. After chowing down on some good food we headed back to our Hotel for the night.

The next day we did the typical tour of Busan that I've now down three times. First we headed off to Bemosa Temple. While we were there we saw a bunch of guys in Navy Whites. As we walked by we heard that they were speaking Spanish. Interesting I thought but no big deal. After Bemosa we headed down to Jagalchi Fish Market, and then up to Busan Tower. Once again at Busan Tower we ran into the same group of Sailors. While taking a picture for a few of them we found out they were Colombian. When we found this information out, we asked them what the Colombian Navy was doing in Korea. The guys we ran into we part of a Colombian Goodwill tour. They apparently were sailing all across the Pacific and were allowing people from other countries to view their ship. It was really interesting and you could tell that these guys were loving their jobs. Before Korea they had been in San Diego, and they were headed to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and couple of other places. Not bad duty if I a say so myself.

When we finished up at the tower we headed over to the UN Cemetery to pay our respects. We finished up with the Cemetery and then headed back to our hotel to take a well deserved nap. It was really hot down in Busan. It was about 90 Degrees and about 80% humidity, when it wasn't busy raining on us. That night we had Korean BBQ as way to say goodbye to Korea for Ann. We wandered back our motel and got some sleep. The next day we headed off to the airport, and then I headed back to Seosan to go back to work.