This is one of the entrances to the Hwaseong fortress. Today I walked the 5 kilometers around the fortress walls and then went through the palace.















This is a river that flows through the Hwaseong fortress as well as the city of Suwon.

Namhansanseong and Hwaseong

This is the southern entrance of Namhansanseong. It guarded the southern entrances to Seoul. The wall winds through the mountains for about 7 miles. I went up there with my friend Fialek yesterday and walked all the way around it. It took about 3 hours to get all the way around. It was a hard hike with all the steps, but the views were great. On the west side you could see out over the mountains, but on the east side you could see all of Seoul.




I don't know if these are azaleas or not but they sure look like it to me. All of the bushes are so full with flowers that you can't even see any leaves anymore.










Just a white egret I saw. It's one of the few animals that I've seen, so I decided to take a picture.











I don't think you can see it anymore but this guy caught a fish and was in the process of eating it. I think the camera is too slow and he's already swallowed it.

Trip to Daechon

Last break I went to the coastal town of Daechon with my friend Kraha. When we originally started off we were actually trying to get to a different beach. But, when we got off the train we discovered that our map was incorrect and that we were still 40 kilometers from the coast. So we waited until the next train came by about an hour later and took it farther south to Daechon. Once we got off there we took a cab the 10km from the station to the beach and walked around for a little while. The beach was long and flat and covered with little black star fish. At the south end of the beach it has huge boulders that we climbed over, to go exploring. Didn't find anything to exciting except for some old fishing baskets that Kraha tried to use as a net and catch some fish. After that we climbed back over to the beach and then walked along the road towards the harbor. All along this road there were restaurants with fish tanks out front. There were thousands of all kinds of fish, octopus, squid, crustaceans, sea cucumbers, and even a few nurse sharks. You could pick any fish you wanted and they'd pull it out for you and cook it or just give it to you raw.

We continued to walk over to the harbor and when we got there we found that they had a "cruise ship" as well as ferrys that go out to all the major islands. We didn't have time to go out on a ferry so we decided to take a one hour tour on the "Sunflower." The boat was more of an old smelly trawler than an actual cruise ship, but it was fine since it was only ten bucks. They sold these nasty frys that taste like shrimp that all the Koreans love to eat and also throw to the seagulls. So as soon as we departed port all the Koreans and all the Seagulls flocked to the back of the boat to have a contest of who could eat the most. The one good thing about the trip was that we got to see drunk Koreans trying to dance.

I went up to Seoul last week to go to the Cherry Blossom Festival. It was held on Yo-uido island, which is an island in the middle of the Han river in Seoul. It may have been because it was the last day of the festival, but there was very little festivities. But there were tons of Cherry blossoms, so I guess one out of two is pretty good.

My friend Scabby

Here is a picture of Scabby on day 1. He's covered by a piece of gauze under a piece of plastic. This is to ensure that he grows up to be a big strong pustule. Had to keep that on for a couple of days.











Day 6, It's hard to see but the Scabby is beginning to pus up and ooze everywhere.













Here we are at day 9, you can see that Scabby is growing well. By this time my arm was so red and my lymph nodes were so swollen that I couldn't sleep on my sides, and had to sleep on my back.









On Day 12, it still looks like I've got a softball on my shoulder. Scabby is beginning to mature and lose his pubescent qualities, as his skin drys out.














And here we are on day 18 as Scabby has fully matured to the red and black, blood encrusted scab that he is today.







At the time of printing it is being reported that Scabby has died. Scabby is survived by a dime size scar on my shoulder.

Korean War Memorial

I went up to Seoul this weekend with some people from work, to go see the Korean War Memorial. It was a huge museum that gave the history of all wars that the Koreans have participated in.



This is a picture of the "turtle ship" which is a armor plated war ship that was used by the koreans to defend themselves from a Japanese invasion in the 1500s. That's right, I said the 1500s. That's 300 years before the Merrimac and the Monitor. It also never lost a battle the entire time it was in service.









Here's another picture of the turtle ship. It is just a replica but the LCD TV on the back is an original. Turns out that the ship actually got put on MTVs "Pimp My Ride".











This a picture of the museum from the outside. It had the flags of all the nations who helped defend Korea during the Korean conflict placed around the courtyard.













This is a picture on the subway to designate seats for the feable. My favorite is the pregnant woman.

More Pics

Here are some pictures from our hike on Saturday.



This is a workout zone set up along the trail about 300 meters from the trailhead. I guess this is there to help people get warmed up for the hike.











This is a picture from the exterior of one of the buildings in the Samaksa Buddhist temple complex. Almost all of the temples that I've seen since I've been here are painted as intricately as this one is.









This is a shrine set up for Buddha within the temple complex.













Near the end of our hike we came upon a park filled with pieces of "art". We walked in this one which looks more like a bamboo prison than art. The two koreans were part of a group that guided us over the mountains all day. The guy in the blue jacket was hungover when he joined us at the train station and even brought a bottle of Soju(rice wine) for lunch. So he was very friendly all day.





Here we are on the train on the way back to Osan. I hadn't seen that many blackheads since puberty.