I went with my coworker Danielle and her boyfriend, Joel. At around 10:30am we took a train from Daejeon to Suwon, which took a little more than an hour. I had the South Korean countryside and Cat's Cradle to help pass the time.
Just so you know a little more about what it is these pictures are of, this is straight from the tourist guide:
The Construction period of Hwaseong was between January 1794 (18th year of King Jeongjo, the 22nd king of the Joseon Dynasty) and September 1796. King Jeongjo moved the tomb of his father, Crown Prince Jangheon from Mt. Baebong in Yangju to Mount Hwa in Suwon and established Yongjusa Temple in this vicinity to pray for the souls of the dead. All the government offices and private houses that had been located under Mount Hwa were moved to the lower part of Mount Paldal and Suwonbu was promoted to Yusubu- it became current Suwon. Hwaseong is known as a masterpiece in the history of fortification. It consists of 41 facilities, however, 7 facilities have not been restored. Hwaseong, constructed about 200 years ago, has the most modern scale and function.
On with the show...
Well this is Paldalmun, one of the four main gates to get into the city that the fortress used to protect. As you can see, now it's sort of an island, around which flows traffic. As the fortress is now, it is the only part that is disconnected. We didn't go into this structure because of the massive amount of traffic at the time.
This is the view after walking along the wall for a couple of hundred feet. The fortress wall is on the right. The flags designate the side of the wall that you are on; red means west. You can see Paldalmun there in the center of the picture.
And here's a shot of what was directly behind me from the previous shot. Walking these stairs got old pretty quickly.
A little higher up, still looking towards Paldalmun. The structure on the right is one of the sentry posts. If you look closely, along the wall there are square holes that look out to the west. These were spots where archers could fire through the wall at their attackers.
This is what awaited us at the top of the initial long climb straight up.
The Bell of Filial Piety.
Seogangdae, a military command point at the summit of Mt. Paldal. On the left is a crossbow tower.
View from Seojangdae, and atop the crossbow tower.
Me, next to a bronze statue of King Jeongjo.I've got a bunch more pictures, but it's a tedious task to upload them onto blogger and drag them to the appropriate part of the text, so I'm going to stop. I haven't even gotten to the palace part of the site, but I'll post all of the pictures I took onto facebook.
After spending a good 5 or 6 hours checking out the sights, we headed back. The train ride back was pretty brutal; a packed train meant standing for the entire 90 minute ride to Daejeon, taking in a variety of smells that Korean people have. At least I still had Vonnegut to keep me occupied.
gay store called, they want their jacket back. PWNED
ReplyDeletemaybe american cities would benefit from more fortresses and oversize statues of our leaders - give 'em a sense of gravity.
ReplyDeleteSanta could sit at the top of a long stone staircase, lined with crying children. Happy xmas, any observance/celebration there?