Today I went to Suwon. This once-upon-a-time walled city is now a bustling exurb of Seoul with almost a million inhabitants, and is the capital of the province of Gyeonggi, which is where I live. Gyeonggi is a horseshoe that wraps around Seoul on all sides except the direct west, so although I live northwest of the city, Suwon is directly south of the city, and the subway journey took slightly over two hours.
It was a grayish, overcast day – perfect for exploring, as it was neither too hot nor too cold. I got off at the Hwaseo subway station, and walked, mapless, east and south until I found the north end of the old city walls. Then I climbed the hill called Paldal along the walls on the west side, and finally drifted down to the south gate and worked my way out to the train station (and the main Suwon subway station). By then, it had started to drizzle.
I took the train back to Insadong and bought my weekly fix of magazines. Then I came back to my humble abode, and prepared myself some delicious gimchibokkeumbap – the best I’ve made for myself so far.
I was surprised to learn today that it is possible to go much further than Suwon on the subway – you can actually go as far as Cheonan on a subway ticket. Cheonan is in the next province south from Gyeonggi, called Chungcheongnam (South Chungcheong, but actually mostly to the west of “North” Chungcheong). This would be like being able to go to Richmond, VA on a DC metro ticket, or like being able to go to Madison, WI on the Chicago Ell. And it means that you can traverse nearly a third of the country’s north-south length on the Seoul subway (looks like well over 100km on the map). At this rate, they could eventually cover the whole country in a single subway system. That would be cool. I would ride it.
Here are a few pictures from Suwon.
A parapet.
A wall.
A path.
The south gate.
