A slightly earlier start today as we have a lot to fit in. After about an hours drive, our first stop was Suwon Hwaseong fortress which was built by the 22nd ruler of Joseon Dynasty king Jangheon. Construction began in 1794 and was completed by 1796. The walk is 5.7km long and between 4 – 6 metres high. We didn’t have time to walk the whole walk so we started at the Deukjungjeong or command post, next to this is an area to practice archery – it is said that the king hit the target every time! From there we walked towards the observation tower which we should have been able to go in but unfortunately it was locked so we looked over the wall then walked round to the Changnyongmun (gate) which gave us good views over this end of the complex. Paul had suggested that we walk to the sentry post which we did but we then decided to walk down to the flood gate which is an impressive gate that is used to manage the flow of the river, not much water was coming through but it was worth the walk all the same. We then started heading back to the car so that we could go to our next location which was the Korean Folk village, on the way we stopped to fill up with fuel, which interestingly didn’t involve turning the car off – not sure I was totally comfortable with this but nothing blew up so we drove round to the village. We arrived just in time for the ‘entertainment’ which consisted of Farmers Music and Dance – very colourful; Acrobatics on a Tightrope – possibly more entertaining if you could understand what he was saying but good nonetheless and Equestrian Feats which to be honest I wasn’t very sure about as but they were all entertaining in their own way. We then walked round examples of various houses from different areas of Korea, houses from the north don’t have the outside verandas and have a lot smaller rooms as it is very cold in the north in winter down to about minus 30 sometimes whereas houses from the South have both larger rooms and verandas they also have ‘summer rooms’ that don’t have underfloor heating and are actually quite high off the ground. We also looked at the differences between upper and middle class houses – all about the size of the gate and how many floors they have and a couple of examples of workers houses both farms and tradesmen. Paul then left us to have a wonder so he could go off and have lunch and we had spicy chicken on a stick and ice-cream then went for more of a walk round the village. The whole area is over 243 acres and has about 270 houses so we didn’t manage to do them all but we walked round quite a few. Today is a holiday in Korea so there were a lot of locals visiting the site, a lot of them seem to have hired traditional dress there is something quite strange about seeing people wondering round in traditional dress and taking their photos with a selfie stick! Possibly more interesting were the families with young children who seem to have apple carts on wheels rather than prams, these normally have 2 children and most of the things they need for the day including in some cases food, drinks and cushions! Then it was time to head back to the car for our final stop of the day. This is the UNESCO site of Namhansanseong Fort, again this is a world heritage site and covers a very large area, if it was a little higher it would be Koreas version of the great wall of China! Rather the walk all the way round we went in the North gate and walked to the South Gate, this was about 3.5km and gave us fantastic views over Seoul although in places it was steep and quite hard work! We had been given an hour and a half to get round which as it turned out was exactly what it took us by the time we had made a few detours to look at various secret gates and temples that are dotted around. Today we learnt a few things about the Korean people, first they don’t like the Japanese having invaded them a couple of times they still hold this against them but more interestingly they really don’t like the Americans, not just from recent history they seem to hold them responsible for the economic problems they have had as when Korea was separated the North got all the resources; food, water and minerals and the south got Seoul! By the time we had reached the end it was 5pm and time to head back to the city and hotel, unfortunately everyone was heading back in at the same time so we did get stuck in traffic but all the same we were back at the hotel just after 6pm which gave us time to have something to eat, relax and get ready to do it all again in the morning!
