5.September

A day of relaxation. An excursion in the city of Hwaseongi and a Samsung factory. Hwaseong we saw a renovated fortress wall and the royal palace inside, that was built in 1789 and in which the sole original thing was a wooden house from the year 1903. In the fortress wall, the Janganmun gate has also remained and apparently a part of the wall, since this fortification building is also in the UNESCO list of world heritage. We also came to know the panorama of Hwaseong as seen from the top of a hill at the centre of Hwaseong; it didn’t differ much from the view from the Seoul television station, since here also only one big dwelling block of 15 floor buildings was seen. Well, Suwon does have more than one million inhabitants. Near the royal palace we were entertained by a spectacular performance of royal soldiers and the demostration of their martial arts. Such spectacles were also noticeable near the royal palaces in Seoul, meant to be entertaining to tourists and to attract people to go visit the palaces. Though the individual tickets for adults were 1000-3000 Wons, depending on the palace, they evidently still weren’t a hindrance for anyone, who had just enough time.

In the Samsung factory, the most interesting sight was the toilet that after finishing with the ‘bigger distress’ by a push on the operating button also washed the butt and then dried one with a drier so that there was no need to use paper ;) It was also interesting to hear of the Samsung vision on the future development of the electronics industry. One important thing was that computer memory cards are going to take over the functions of hard disk drives in the near future and Samsung is seeking the share of computer telephones similar to the iPod and believes that this is going to be a "cash cow" of the years to come.

We sacrificed the visit of kings’ tomb to seeing the Suwon downtown and trade center. The organisers called us a taxi and saw us off. The bill was merely 9000 Wons. This cost made us a bit too careless when seeking a taxi on our own, but of this the reader will learn below.

In the Suwon downtown we did shopping. I provided myself with a memory stick since the old 1G one had already been fulfilled. Due to inexpensive prices I bought a 8G SDHC card on which you could store trip photos ad nauseam. The price was merely 45 000 Won, the same price that I had paid at home for a fast-speed 1G USB memory card (and memory stick). Life is developing quickly.

We returned to the hotel by the university bus that diminished the money in purse á 800 Won.

Dinner once again took place in the garden, because the hotel apparently would have not been able to serve the hungry people with the necessary exuberance. But in the garden it was possible to set up bigger buffets where all the people got their share quickly.