Saturday, May 19, 2018

Hwaseong Fortress 수원 화성: The Janganmun Gate

One of the places that we have been told to go to, is the Suwon Fortress, officially known as the Hwaseong Fortress.  Suwon isn't very far, in fact this is the same town we went to for the Escape Room.  We didn't have anything planned today, so we decided to pack some lunches and the hiking backpacks and check out the fortress.  When we got there, we realized it is gigantic!


We tried parking in the designated parking lot, but it was full and there was a line of cars waiting for a parking spot.  We drove around and ended up pulling a Korean and just parked on the side of the road.  After we parked there, we were quickly joined by 4 other cars.  We got our backpacks on, put Monster in the hiking backpack and set off.  After hiking for a bit, we first found ourselves at the Dongbukporu Sentry Post.  The kids loved looking through the holes in the fortress wall.



We then followed the wall and found ourselves walking up and down stairs.  We also were surrounded by beautiful trees. It was definitely a beautiful kid friendly hike!


The next building that we came to was the Dongbukgangnu Pavilion.  The pavilion was a pretty good size.


We would have to take our shoes off to go on the pavilion, but with Monster on Kevin's back, we decided to just snap a picture.



After the Pavilion, we walked more and found ourselves at a river and the Buksumun Floodgate.  The kids loved seeing the small waterfall as it came out of the floodgate.


After leaving the floodgate, we walked some more until we got to the Janganmun Gate.  This was the largest structure that we saw today.



There was a cannon in one of the walkways.


We also were able to walk all the way around, in and through the gate.



There were some super steep crazy stairs that we had to walk down.  It made me a little nervous to see Kevin walking down with Monster on his back.


After spending more time then the kids wanted, we started walking back the same way we came.  The kids wanted to check out a gate that lead out of the wall and to a pond.


We found the Bukammun Secret Gate and spent some time at the pond. The kids enjoyed seeing the lily pads and the flowers on the lily pads.


We passed the Pavilion and the Sentry Gate again as we made our way to the car.  We looked at the map and found out that we only saw about 1/4 of the Fortress!  It was so beautiful!  We hope to come back and hike more of the wall!


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