Suwon Hwaseong Fortress

 September 25th, 2025

 

With our mooses, at Hwaseong Fortress.

We caught a taxi this morning to Pyeongtaek Station, and got a train to Suwan then a bus to Suwon Hwaseong Fortress.

 

One of the entrances to Suwon Hwaseong Fortress.

 

At the info center, they gave out free maps, and had a free orientation about the fortress, telling some of the features that you can see and some of the history. We thought the guide would come with us, but he just talked to us there and then we walked on the wall.

This is a walled fortress city, which was destroyed and rebuilt (Japanese destroyed it?). Just recently the walls were (mostly) finished rebuilding (It took 119 years to rebuild). The guide said it cost a lot of money.

The city extended inside the walls.

After 2-1/2 hours we found an info booth, and the guide told us we should go down to see the  (but it would be closing soon). 

He said that they have little places you can camp here, if you want. He refilled our water bottle, because we were out and the snack shop was closed.

 

 

Walking on the Wall

Terracotta style roof tiles.

You can walk freely along the walls and the city dissects it. There is a Palace there, but we didn't make it in time to go in. It is a "Temporary Palace" (built 500 years ago). I think the King and family just stayed there part of the year.

There is a museum, but we walked the walls for almost three hours, and we'd only done a maybe a quarter or a third of the wall.

We headed down for the Palace, but it closed before we could get there. We took pictures of the outside and bemoaned the fact that we really can’t camp here tonight, fun as that sounded (and at Erica’s we have some sleeping bags)…

That’s okay, there’s other things to see. Though the museum also sounded fun and we didn’t make it to that either.

We went back to a meat pie shop (called Meat Tales). It was up above another restaurant and we almost didn’t figure out how to get there. We bought their last two meat pies! And a beer (Damn Lemon).

 

 

A bronze statue of King Jeongjo, who founded the fortress.

 

 

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Terracotta Warriors, Downunder!

 

Perth, Australia

Nov. 14

So we took the metro to town, with a plan to go see King’s Park. We walked by the WA Museum downtown and saw a sign for the Terracotta Warriors. I thought… what? In Perth? 

We had to go in and see what that was about. It turns out that they have a display with pieces on loan of the Terracotta Warriors from Xi’an, China. 

We didn’t know about this til we walked by. I was only mildly on the museum otherwise.

We were hungry so we went across the street and had pizza at Palace Arcade. They have retro arcade games, so retro that they have “Pong.” That’s right; that’s like the first ever video game, certainly the first one I played. We didn’t take time to play any games, because we wanted to get back to the museum, as it was already 1:00 PM.

TERRACOTTA WARRIORS

This is a great special collection they have and it covers a lot of history of the area, especially Qin Shi Huang (Qin is pronounced “chin”), who conquered all of China and became the first Emperor in 221 BC.

Spring and Autumn Period: 770 - 476 BCE

During this period, 100 small states and kingdoms vied for power. During this time, the Qin started as a feudal state but gradually rose to power over 500 years. 

The Warring States: 476 - 221 BCE

By warfare the number of states were reduced to seven. 

The first emperor of China was Qin Shi Huang (Qin Shi Huangdi). He unified the country in 221 BC after conquering the other six warring states and founded the Qin dynasty. 

Qin tore down the walls around the competing kingdoms once he’d conquered them, and built the Great Wall of China.

He is also known for major projects like standardizing Chinese writing and currency, and creating a unified system of weights and measures.

 

The eighth wonder of the world, the Terracotta Warriors, was another ambitious project of Qin Shi Huangdi. They would guard his tomb. 

Also Qin built a system of road, including the “Straight Road” which was a 500 mile road for the military to get to the north quickly, if they were invaded. 

He had thought that such a great road would protect his legacy for 10,000 years, but all the work and resources to build these things put a lot of demand on the populace. Also, his harsh laws and system of justice caused unrest.

Qin Shi Huangdi died in 210 BC; he was succeeded by his son.

In 209 BC a rebellion broke out, but failed. But within 3 years the empire began to fall apart because of other rebellions that began to spread. 

Khevron rightly guessed that the origin of the European word “Chinese” went back to the name of the first Emperor Qin.

The Han dynasty was born out of a revolt against the harsh rule of the Qin Dynasty.

But they were more considerate of the populace, and made less demands. Their terracotta figurines were only 1/3 real size.

The Han Dynasty lasted 400 years. 

After the museum, I got a Terracotta Warrior bookmark and Khevron got two Chinese coin replicas. 

SUNSET AT THE PARK

Now it was late afternoon and we headed for King’s Park. The first place I wanted to go was Jacob’s Ladder, because it had a great view.

The way we approached it, we started at the top of Jacob’s Ladder, got some great shots of the city. Then went down the stairway (ladder). We walked what seemed a long way, over a foot bridge, and over another bridge and got to a place to get a good shot of the sunset, right there on the ocean.

By now we’d given up on the rest of the park, so we headed back to a restaurant we saw at the bottom of Jacob’s Ladder, but it was closed. So we took a metro all the way out to Westfield Carousel Mall only to find out it had closed at 5:30. So, we had dinner at Guzman Y Gomez. Then headed home.

Tree Top Walk, Singapore

We took the MRT up toward Bukit Timah and decided to see the Windsor Nature Trail and the Tree Top Walk. We had read that the Tree Top walk often has macaque monkeys in the trees. We didn’t actually make it to Bukit Timah; just doing to Tree Top Walk and walking back to the street turned out to be quite a walk.

For us, this didn’t turn out to be true, but there were a lot of macaque monkeys on the way their, strolling along on the rails of the bridges we crossed, and along the trail.

It was a pleasant walk, though a little steep getting to and from the Tree Top Walk, but not bad. There are a lot of stairs and most of the trail is on raised wooden boardwalks (except after the Treetop Walk).

Khevron’s video of the Tree Top Walk.

https://youtu.be/JyvlkW6c5Y4

Khevron’s timelapse video going down the stairway from the Tree Top Walk.

https://youtu.be/tGU9KMjJZF8

JELUTONG TOWER

The last place we went was the Jelutong Tower, where you can climb up and see a great view of the forest.

Pano pics from the top of the Jelutong Tower in the Nature Reserve.

GREEDY MONKEY

On the way to the tower, we found some trash on the ground—an abandoned lunch sack, and we picked it up and put it in a plastic bag so we could throw it out.

Now, here’s the thing: the macaque monkeys know that plastic sacks have food so we’d been warned not to have plastic bags of food. Near the tower, a macaque monkey confronted us on the road and came at Khevron. I realized he wanted the plastic sack of trash, so I took it and stuffed it inside Khevron’s backpack and we hurried on to the tower.

But the macaque wasn’t fooled. He knew Khevron had a sack of food and he wanted it, so as we climbed the tower—he followed us. We got to the top and took some pictures, but the macaque was waiting there on the rail at the top of the stairs, showing his teeth. It occurred to me that those teeth were large and could do some damage if he bit.

Monkey Climbing Up the stairway.

Monkey waiting at the top of the tower, on the stairway, for us to go down.

Khevron went first and I followed and we rushed past the monkey and ran all the way down the stairs and then down the trail, and lost him. 

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