I took a day trip from Seoul to Suwon, South Korea, to see some of the highlights there.

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

Ever since I studied abroad in South Korea in the summer of 2024, I’ve been trying to write blog posts for the little things I do, even if it’s going across town for a fun little day. When I was studying abroad in Busan my Korean teacher would show us these Naver (a Korean search engine) blogs random people would make documenting visiting parks or bakeries, and I loved that energy.

I think the Internet is a cluttered place, so even if no one reads this at the end of the day, it’s a cute little time capsule for as long as we have electricity—or my credit card stops paying for this domain. I recently started a job, at the time of typing this, and I’m finding one of the ways that I’ve continued to stay sane is by going on little side quests here and there.

At the time of typing this, I recently moved to South Korea for ten months to pursue a Fulbright award at Seoul National University. This was my first full week here, and while I decided to give myself a brief moment before school starts to be a tourist, I wanted to be adventurous. How did I do that? I went straight to another city.

On a quiet Thursday I hopped on Line 2, then transferred at Sindorim to take the Line 1 all the way down to Suwon. Here’s what I did during my day trip! I do plan to go back later though, as I want to go to the Chinese gardens in the city.

The Starfield Mall in Suwon has a gorgeous library, and some decent shopping if you want to pick up some items.

I took the Line 1 to Hwaseon Station, which was a brief five minute walk to the entrance of the Starfield Mall. I chose this route as I knew that the subway line would drop me right where I wanted to be, and I wanted to get lunch while I was in the mall before heading to the fortress.

I went straight to the seventh floor, which has the Eatopia. Basically it’s a bunch of different restaurants with varying foods. I saw Korean, Japanese, Indian, Chinese, Mexican, and bakeries up there. However, there are other places to eat throughout the mall, so maybe look at the directory first.

I did a lap and saw where people were eating at the most. I ordered the steak sotbap at the sotbap place in the corner, as most people were eating there, and with a Coke Zero it came out to be 20,000 won. It was a lot of food—I didn’t really eat for the rest of the day, honestly.

Did I think it was worth that much? Probably not, but it was still good. By the time I was finished eating at 11:25 AM the food court was really filling up, so I did a lap around each of the floors. There was a mix of Western and Korean brands, and while I did not buy anything, some people were certainly shopping up a storm.

That said, the fourth floor is where the bottom of the famous library is. You can see it on the other floors, but it certainly is gorgeous to look at. On a weekday, too, the mall was pretty empty so anyone who was taking pictures basically had the whole place to themselves. There were a couple of other tourists milling about, but I’d say early on a weekday is a good time to go. As I was leaving a lot of people were streaming into the mall.

After that, I hopped on the 3 bus outside the mall for a quick twenty minute ride to my next destination: Hwaseong Fortress!

Hwaseong Fortress is a must-do in the Suwon area and a fascinating piece of Korean history.

Hwaseong Fortress was the real reason I wanted to come to Suwon. Because it was almost a hundred degrees with the humidity, I did not get to do everything I wanted to do because I started dying towards the end. That means I get to come back later!

Once I got off the 3 bus at Hwaseomun, I headed in the direction up towards the mountain. If you want to hike, go this way. I only ventured upward because I wanted a higher vantage point to take pictures of Suwon at, which I did do. Then I headed back down and walked along the fort wall. I did stop at 7-Eleven at one point before venturing up along the way to grab a Pocari Sweat.

If you want to stop at cafes, there are a ton along the fortress. The area around Hwaseong is well known for its cafe streets, as well as the chicken street, and I saw some with delectable signs for cake and bingsoo. I wasn’t hungry, but I did stop at a place I had bookmarked because the heat was starting to get to me: Paletscent.

The owner was really kind and chatted with me, asking if I was stopping here on vacation. I was nervous about conversing in Korean like this, but she seemed to understand me pretty well, which was a win on my end. The cafe overlooks one of the gates of the fort, so you get an excellent view while sipping your drink. I spent about thirty minutes there just relaxing with my green grape ade.

I finished off this journey with wandering over to Hwahongmun Gate, which is the gate directly over the river. It’s one of the most gorgeous parts of the walk along the palace, and I snapped quite a few shots here. If it wasn’t so hot I would have kept going, but I was dying.

I hopped on the 7770 bus to go to Sadang Station. I had no idea it was an express bus and 3,200 won, but, honestly, it was comfortable, empty, and very air conditioned, so I was fine with it. I reloaded my T-card at the station and trekked back home via the Line 2.

All in all, I enjoyed Suwon a lot! I want to go back for the Chinese garden and Na Hye-seok street—I did my master’s thesis partially on her work as a writer and artist, so going there would be extra special.

Follow me below on Instagram, Goodreads, and Letterboxd for more.