Hwaseong Fortress

Yesterday, my dad took us to one of UNESCO's World Heritage sites, Hwaseong Fortress in Suwon, Korea. Hwaseoung is around 30 km from Seoul, and is basically a walled city built by King Jeongjo between 1794-1796.

Hwaseong Fortress was built over two and a half years, from 1794 to 1796. Designed by the architect Jeong Yak-yong, who was a leader of the practical learning movement (Silhak), the fortress walls incorporated aspects of Chinese and Japanese architecture as well as Korean. Yak-yong really encouraged the use of science and industry in his plans, which lead to the use of brick, instead of just traditional stone, as a building material. Furthermore, Hwaseong's walls were also built using cranes and pulleys. I've heard that King Jeongjo actually wanted to make Suwon the new capital of Korea instead of Seoul, but I'm not sure if that's true.

The city was really pretty though. There are four main gates to the city, as well as myriad other "water gates". This is Paldalmun, the south gate of the city.
the top of the gate...
a better view from the Hwaseong official site.


After wandering around the south end of the city for all of 10 minutes, we decided that we were too hot to actually walk around the circumference of Hwaseong as we had planned, and returned to the car to drive around the city. Right beside the car, people were drying chilis. Nice.

mmm. if only i liked chili...
sightseeing by car - so much more comfortable than sightseeing on foot!

After making a loop around the city, we paused at a particularly picturesque gate, Hwahongmun, which is one of those water gates that I mentioned earlier.

so pretty!!! Supposedly one of the top 10 views in Suwon.
kids playing in the stream. the little boy was hunting for his sister's flip-flop...adorable!
hwahongmun from the front.
the stream cuts across the entire city. i'm guessing it was the main water source back in the day.

After gazing at all the pretty greenery and walking around the gate, we returned to our car - only to discover that the battery had completely died on us! My dad tried to start the car up multiple times, only to be met with a somewhat spluttering noise. We called the car company to come jumpstart the car for us, but it took them ages to find us since we weren't actually in Seoul. Luckily we managed to entertain ourselves fairly well while waiting...

we found a small general store near the road, and immediately bought ourselves ice-cream. Mine had solid lumps of sugar in it...
waiting for the car company...we were excited by the motorcycle guy stopping by our car, but he turned out to be a random passer-by who needed to make a phone call.
the dragon train tour of hwaseong. the 3 cars in the back are designed in the shape of sedans, which were the main mode of transport for the King.
that's what's under the hood. fascinating isn't it...NOT.

afterwards we drove home as fast as we could.

Hong Kong! (II)

Food
I think my favourite part of Hong Kong was all the food - the dim sum, the roast meat stores. All so good! But there were a couple of dishes that stood out.

Teochew soya sauce goose
We accidentally wandered into a dimsum-by-day/restaurant-by-night place in kowloon one day, and I am so glad we did. My dad was instantly captivated by the sight of the geese hanging in the store window, and insisted on ordering a plate for dinner. Though I'm not usually a big goose eater, I really enjoyed these; the slices were just the right size, and the seasoning was absolutely perfect. These are served on top of soft tofu, which is the perfect complement to the dish. Yum.

Rice Noodle Rolls with Shrimp
This was another fabulous dish. It usually comes with dim sum, and I've had it many times before - its a frequent order whenever I go out for dim sum. But these rolls were really different - the rice noodles were so incredibly thin and delicious, and the sauce was just the perfect amount of sweet and salty.

Congee with Salted Pork and Century Egg
So my mom told me that something I had to eat while in HK was congee. I'm usually not the hugest fan - the last few times I've had it, the congee has been too thick or too bland, with thick and unappetizing pieces of century egg. It doesn't look like much in the picture, but this bowl of congee was really delicious - the egg was sliced into bite size chunks, the porridge was not too thick or too thin, and best of all, was tasty! I think I ended up eating it every single day that I was in HK.

Shopping
Also fantastic in HK, though I didn't end up buying too much. It was really fun just to walk around and see all the different types of shopping available, from designer malls, to road side stores.

Mong Kok Ladies Market
This place really reminds me of those outdoor markets in Thailand. I really enjoyed walking through the stores and seeing all the different things they had for sale - from current fashions to bags of all kinds, to toys for toddlers and dvds. My parents actually went a little DVD crazy when we were there...
...though to be fair, they did buy that "kiss" series for my viewing pleasure. I should start that sometime. I also saw the cutest pillows for sale there:
KOALA PILLOWS! They look just like the koalas on those chinese snack food things :) haha, adorable!

H&M
Okay, I had to have a shout-out to H&M, which is probably the store that I'll miss the most in Singapore...though I have heard that they're going to open a branch there soon. YAY! Anyway, all the other stores in this area were really nice too, with names ranging from Gucci to Marks & Spencer.

Dried Seafood Store
These were everywhere in HK - dried scallops, mussles, anchovies. They also sell "delicacies" like bird's next (which is really just swallow spit. GROSS) and abalones - not my kind of thing, but popular in HK anyway :)

I definitely enjoyed my trip there, and I would love to go back again sometime - but this time I'm bringing a bigger suitcase!

Hong Kong! (I)

My dad had a business trip in Hong Kong this week, and since my mom and I haven't been to HK since I was five, we decided to tag along and see the sights. I was really excited - HK is supposed to be a fantastic city for shopping and eating, which, needless to say, are two of my favourite things. The trip was actually really enjoyable - we visited some of the popular tourist spots, did some shopping, ate...a lot. One highlight was our trip to Lantau Island...

Visit to the Tian Tan Buddha in Lantau Island
The Tian Tan Buddha is this amazing giant bronze statue that sits on top of a mountain. I've seen a lot of large Buddha statues, and this is by far and away the most gorgeous of them all.To get to the Buddha, we had to climb 268 steps. Luckily they were just going straight up, instead of winding all over the mountain :) Apparently, the entire statue was planned out very carefully. The statue was based off of two famous Buddha statues (unfortunately I don't remember them right now) - and a plaster cast was designed and built to a smaller scale beforehand. Originally, the statue was to be set in steel, but after some trial runs, they decided to go with bronze and ended up casting 23 pieces, which were later transported up the mountain and assembled.

the trek up.
resting...
at the base of the lotus.
on the way up.
view from the top!

Right next door to the Tian Tan Buddha is the Po Lin Monastery, where we got a hearty vegetarian lunch. We had worked up quite an appetite from the climb up and our tour inside the exhibition halls.

at the visitor's canteen.
for just the two of us we had all this, plus a huge tureen of soup, and a pot of rice. gluttony.
after we were satiated, we walked around Po Lin Monastery.
you can see the statue wherever you go pretty much.

I have to admit though, the way to the statue and the monastery was kind of torturous. First, we took the MTR (HK subway) 40 minutes out to Tung Chung Station on Lantau Island. Then we waited over 20 minutes for a bus, which took around an hour and a half to traverse some really windy and narrow mountain roads to get to our stop. Half the bus looked ready to be sick at the end of the journey (myself included...yikes!) despite all the gorgeous scenery we got to admire on the way up. To avoid a second wave of nausea, my mom and I decided to take the much shorter, and much more scenic, cable car route.

the village from which the cable car leaves from.

floating above the mountains :)

in the car!
view of the city as we come in - and i didn't edit the colors or anything!

second last leg back to the subway station - which is closer to the airport than i thought!!