The weeks just seem to fly by. Finally got the results back from the health test on Tuesday and went to the local immigration office on Thursday to apply for the ARC(Alien Registration Card) which I should get by Tuesday or Wednesday this week. Then, at that point I will be officially legally in the country. I also found extremely cheap called cards at the immigration office 10000 won for 300 minutes to Canada or the United States which are much cheaper than the phone cards at Costco. One less thing I have to buy at Costco now.
I went to Suwon on Saturday and went to Hwasung Palace. You can check out all of the pictures on Facebook. It costs 2200 won to get there on the subway which takes 62 minutes on the subway. I didn't really check out the whole area which includes Hwasung Fortress because I didn't leave until the early afternoon. I had to watch Game 7 of Tampa Bay and Boston and what a travesty of a game it was. I may never set foot in Bonavista again if the Bruins beat the Canucks.
On Sunday I left Choenan and following the directions from the KNTO (Korean National Tourism Organizaton) went to Jochiwon by bus to get to Beartree Park. It turns out that the information on their site is old and outdated. When I got off the bus at the Jochiwon Bus Terminal there was no Family Mart across from the bus terminal which was where you were supposed to get a shuttle bus which runs every twenty minutes to the park. At this point I decided to head to the Jochiwon train station about 10 minutes walk away and of course the Family Mart was across from the train station. I now figure this is going to be easy. As it turns out there is also no shuttle bus which goes to Beartree Park so since the website mentoned that it only takes 10 minutes to get there by bus I decide I'll just take a taxi. A ten minute ride won't be that expensive.
The taxi has to take the highway to get to Beartree Park so it's actually almost a 25 minute taxi ride which now ends up costing me about 15,000 won. At least now I'm finally there but it is actually located outside of a small town so there are no buses or taxis in the immediate area. I go into the souvenir shop and find out that I should have taken the bus from Choenan to Jinwi which would have been a 20 minute shorter trip and then take a taxi from the Jinwi bus terminal which would have cost me only 3000 won. The owner of Beartree Park who spoke really good English comes into the shop and I explain to him that I got there from Jochiwon. To make a long story short he thanked me for coming there and let me in for half price. He then told me that if I liked the park I should tell people about it. It really is a beautiful spot out in the Korean countryside. They get a ton of business from various tour bus companies which come there from as far away as Busan and Gwangju. You can check out the rest of the pictures on Facebook. Next weekend is a long weekend but it's supposed to be rain for Sunday and Monday. I guess I'll have to do some clubbing on Saturday night and I am not referring to seals.
