When we lived in Suwon we used to take the bus into Seoul on most weekends and now we live on the same street where that bus used to drop us off, so catching a ride to Suwon last weekend was pretty convenient. We'd just missed the bus we wanted to take and it was cold so we hopped on another bus that was also going to Suwon, but to a different area. When we got there we didn't recognize where we were and we had to take a taxi to the area that we actually wanted to visit, but it wasn't too inconvenient.
Our first stop was at a galbi place a few minutes' walk from our old apartment building. We'd only discovered this restaurant a few months before we moved away, but when I was in Canada and dreaming about galbi this was the place I dreamed of. Unfortunately we somehow ordered the wrong type of BBQ... it wasn't the stuff we always used to get, but it was still good. At the galbi restaurant I also saw the first sign of change in Suwon: an English menu! The times they are a-changing!
We decided to spend the night at a love motel, Motel Herb, which is directly in front of our old apartment building. Our old apartment used to face Motel Herb and we always wondered what it was like inside. Well, it's pretty red. There was no doubt about it, we were staying in the red light district- check out the motel hallway!
Our room, for only $35 a night. I turned the red light on for photographic effect, but actually it was quite a nice, quiet and clean room and the bathtub was so nice!
After we dropped off our bags we walked over to our old apartment building, the Songak Whitebil. There's been a lot of construction around the old Whitebil- it's absolutely surrounded by new high rise apartment buildings. I can't decide if it makes the Whitebil look more classy or shittier in comparison... I'm just glad I didn't live there while they were building those apartments. Imagine the noise!
After getting a glimpse of the lovely CVS lady, we went up to the roof to poke around. We spent many an evening on that roof, shooting off fireworks and burying bunnies. When we were leaving and got out of the elevator on the ground floor we saw a foreigner getting on the elevator with a friend. I'm sure we blew her mind and I kind of wanted to ask her how Homestay class is going these days.
We walked over to the Home Plus, which in hindsight, we really took for granted. How awesome was it to live across the road from such a useful store! We spent many nights just wandering around Home Plus for something to do, so it was fun to go back. The store had been changed around a bit, but it was just as good as ever and I was glad to see that they're still selling bottles of Moosehead imported straight from Saint John for less than you pay for them in freaking Saint John.
Home Plus is also selling pine needle pillows, which sounds comfy.
In the morning we each took second baths in that amazing Motel Herb tub, dropped our keys off in the elevator (wouldn't it be nice if check-out were so easy in North American motels?) and went out for breakfast.
We shared an overpriced "dream waffle" at Beans & Berries for breakfast. One thing that hasn't changed in Suwon is that there's still nowhere to go grab a decent breakfast.
We walked up the street, did some shopping in the CGV building, noticed that there's a Thai restaurant now (you current-day Suwoners are so spoiled!), and headed to the old Suwon English Villagey to see what our old school looks like today. It looks the same, except now there's a statue outside that says "drama". Our old boss, Stella would have loved that addition: according to her, "students love dlama".
Another pleasant change in Suwon is that all the bus maps are in both Korean and English. We used to go shopping at this great market near Hwaseong Fortress and we always had to take a taxi, but now it's so easy to just read the map and hop on a bus. There were a lot of perms on the bus with us.
Pretty sure I have this exact same photo from three years ago, just with a different car in front of it. We went shopping at the market around Paldalmun for a few hours and it was a lot of fun. Most of my old favorite stores were still there and we both found a lot of good stuff. People that know Korea would probably laugh to hear me say that I'll probably be going back to Suwon again just for the shopping... it really is good!
We spent a bit of time shopping around Suwon Station (the station is actually a pretty good-sized mall) and then took the subway to Songtan for some Thai food. This restaurant, simply called "Thai Food", is the BEST Thai food in Korea, hands down. We love Thai and have been served some pretty crappy Thai food in Itaewon a few times in the last month, but this place is authentic, the prices are fair and the flavors are amazing. It was where we went for supper on our last night in Korea 2 1/2 years ago, so you know it's good.
Continuing on with our Suwon-themed weekend, on Sunday we went to a Suwon vs Seoul soccer match in Seoul with Shanda and Pip. We had a hell of a time getting into the sea of blue Suwon supporters because the cashier had sold us Seoul seats. How rude! We're clearly the Suwon-type.
After the game we went for some beer and fried chicken (we have been eating WAY TOO MUCH Korean fried chicken lately... it's just so good... there's some in my fridge right now...) at Biergarten and then out for some karaoke to belt out some of those old Suwon hits. It's true what they say- that you can't go home again, but sometimes it's fun to pretend.
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