Suwon

We set out in the morning hours on subway line 1 to Suwon. Our goal was to visit the Hwaesong Fortress and the Starfield Library.

The Hwaesong Fortress is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site (1997). It was built by King Jeongjo of the Joseon dynasty between 1794-1796. Located 30 km south of Seoul, the fortress encompasses the king's temporary palace and surrounds much of central Suwon.

We traveled on the subway for about 40-50 minutes until we arrived in Suwon. I might have called our day the “day of great misadventures.” From the subway, we needed to take a bus to reach the fortress. After some difficulty, we found a bus that Gemini said was appropriate. However, the situation became increasingly suspicious along the way, and it turned out we had boarded a bus going in the opposite direction. After a quick exit, we found ourselves at the sign for buses going the other way, looking increasingly perplexed about which bus we should take. Fortunately, a young boy helped us out by showing us which bus to board and at which stop to get off, enabling us to finally reach the temporary palace. From there, we wanted to continue walking along the fortress walls, but we again lost our way; we even climbed a little hill but ended up walking on a wide path to reach one of the fortress gates. Continuing our walk, we found the next tower as well. At this point, we decided to head to the library, as we had to return to Seoul by a certain time. After the morning mishap, we thought everything would be fine, but that didn’t happen. We also needed to take a bus to the library, but we simply couldn’t find any bus stop from where the buses suggested by Gemini departed. After wandering around for about an hour - and it was quite hot - I decided it was time to take a taxi. With the help of the k.rider app, this was very straightforward. The app identified our location, and I just had to input the destination and select the type of taxi. Once that was done, the system deducted (for verification) the fare from the registered card, which was promptly refunded. After that, the taxi’s brand, the driver's name, and the car's license plate appeared, as well as an estimated arrival time for the taxi. The taxi arrived (in about 5 minutes), and there was no need to communicate with the driver; had I had something to say, I could have typed it into the app in English, and the system would have translated it into Korean. When we got out of the taxi, the system deducted the final amount from my card.

The Starfield Library is located in the Starfield Mall. The library opened in 2024 and features 4 floors. The sight of the library was impressive.

Fortunately, it was easier to get back to Seoul because the subway stop of line 1 was nearby; we just had to make sure we boarded in the right direction.

The last program of the day was the evening rainbow fountain at Banpo Bridge. Finding this was not completely smooth either, but we managed to see the light show at 20:30.

By the end of the day, we had taken more than 26,000 steps. We returned to our accommodation sufficiently late and tired.