When I was able to get an extra day in Seoul (last Tuesday), I re-jiggered my itinerary to do some of the city sights on Tuesday, and keep today for a day trip. The most natural one to choose was a trip down to Suwon to see the Hweasong Fortress, a large, sweeping fortress complex with a 5-km long fortress wall and a series of turrets, shrines, buildings interspersed across it. What is particularly notable about the Hweasong Fortress is that it is right within the city limits of Suwon - I have to imagine the modern day city being built around it, allowing for this city to have a major historical sight and incredible park, essentially, right in the center.
The journey to Suwon was a bit lengthy, though granted I knew that when picking it. First was a train from Seoul Station, conveniently 5-min from my AirBNB, to a bus which was actually a nice 45-min ride on a coach bus with USB charging ports and good AC. Korea isn't as developed as a Japan, but in terms of providing these luxuries of what is needed in 2022, it hits every mark.
Suwon itself is a fairly large city of 1.3 million people, big enough to have its own teams, its own citi-specific taxi authority, and a lot of good restaurants, coffee shops and the like. Especially notable was the modernity of these offerings on the street parallel to the main part of the Hwaseong Fortress. Some of the restaurant architecture there was pretty stunning, including a coffee-shop/bar that was about the coolest small shop I've been to yet.
The fortress itself is impressive, both in how long it is an the general interest of being a tourist site, along with again how it is just plopped right in the middle of this sprawling city. The wall that runs for 5km is probably 30-40 feet elevated from ground level, which gives you a really nice view of Suwon itself, which is far more sprawling than I would ahve guessed. I probably shouldn't be so surprised given it is a city of 1.3 million people, replete with its own baseball stadium and soccer stadium (granted it did not host a world cup game in 2002, which Jeonju did). The fortress has different sections, an Eastern part which is a walled loop with a few shrines tossed in, on fairly level ground with one incline to its apex on one end (the park extends further, but the connective wall ends). The middle is a lengthy 'North' section, which is the long stretch of fortress wall with 3-4 lookouts including the main entry point from the city itself. Then there is a 'West' part which is built on a hill that extends up pretty far. It is not a hike, but still fairly strenuous that even the far more in shape than I locals I saw were breathing heavy.
In the end, I'm sure some of the sites in Seoul that I shoved into other days to avoid any Chuseok-related closures may have indeed been open. I'm further sure that the Hwaseong Fortress is a worthy visit. Maybe not if you have limited time - in the end I spent about 3 hours in transit to spend 3 hours in the city, but if you have the luxury of an extra day, or do just want to leave the urban maw of Seoul, it is a fair shout. Just prepare to eb impressively burdened with the urban maw of Suwon instead.
My place of choice after my time in Suwon was one of Seoul's many craft breweries. The first couple I had in mind for today were actually closed due to Chuseok, but one that actually was fairly convenient from a location perspective, Mysterlee, was open. It is on the ground floor of an office buidling in a fairly muted part of Seoul, though a place that is the edge of walking distance away from Hongdae. They had a fairly lengthy tap list, with three IPAs, a stout, a bunch of saisons (seems to be their specialty). They also had a good menu that I was forced to dip a toe into. Korea has a fairly strict "you have to get food" rule at places like this. To Mysterlee's credit, they have what seems to be a great Italian based menu, I just got fries, but they have a wood-fire pizza oven that was churning out great pizzas and a few pasta options that did look very enticing.
For beer I got their standard IPA, a hazy double and tried their stout. All three were good, specifically the hazy double IPA. I find that these types of IPAs that are overrunning America are generally the toughest or most rare finds on my travels to see it done well. So for that reason, I have to commend Mysterlee on their quality. It probably is a bit too commercial than say Nomadic in Jeonju, but then again this is one of the world's biggest cities - in my mind, Menezes Brewing doesn't afford or care to put something in a Seoul. But that said I'm glad that places like this one exist.
My dinner tonight was at Ryunique, the first of four tasting menu spots I have lined up during this trip. One was already paid for three years ago (Gaggan), and the two others are Mingles (Tuesday, in Seoul) and Le Du (Wednesday, in Bangkok). Seoul has a bunch of tasting menu spots. Mingles is the most highly regarded globally, and clocks in roughly at $180 (no drinks). Many are far more, up to $300. Ryunique is basically on par with Mingles. It is located in Gangnam, as are most of the "fancy" spots in Seoul, from the most expensive cocktail bars, to the most posh clubs. It is what it is - this is the part of the city that attracts wealthy foreigners and the monied class in Seoul.
Ryunique is named as a mashup of the chef/found Ryu and 'Unique', and purports to present French or Japanese recipes with Korean ingredients. I don't know how much certain things are Japanese or French, but the ingredients were all Korean, and the food was great. It's not the best tasting menu restaurant I've ever been to, but I didn't expect it to be. It met expectations though with highly whimsical plating and just great taste throughout. Also it had three great desserts, which are usually portions of tasting menus that I've found in past fall off quite a bit.
After dinner (I'm planning to do a separate post detailing both Ryunique and Mingles course by course), I headed back over to Itaewon, this time to the edge of the main area, to a bar called Blacklist, a combo lounge space and rooftop garden. The view isn't all that great from the roof, but the fresh air, lawn furniture, Brooklyn lights made it a quite a ncie atmosphere. They had fairly standard cocktails but all made super well, and a relatively cheaper price point than prior cocktail bars on this trip. We even got to witness an odd exchange where a Spanish couple was demanding that they've been overcharged, and ultimatley the British owner coming in and just giving up and paying the Spanish guy 15k won. It was weird, but interesting. Much like Itaewon itself.
It was a bit earlier today so I walked around Itaewon a bit before heading back into Faust - which was more hardcore in terms of music than yesterday. Overall, Itaewon is commercial, if less glitzy. It is similar to these tpyes of club neighborhoods in every international city, including the plethora of kebab and gyro shops - it seems that being late night food seems to cross all geographical borders. The place had a few clubs that were more showy, some that were probably quite crap but had the attractive women outside trying to draw you in, and then places like Faust that are a bit off the main drag. I left today around 2am - planning to do late nights the next two nights so needed a bit of a relatively early finish. On the whole, I am probably a bit too old for Itaewon's target audience, and defintiely to old to stay out to 5:30am when the trains start running again, but getting to experience it was wholly worth it.
