John’s Diary – Pt 13 Ilsan
Ilsan
Yet another break from school for two days – the school was conducting exams for next year’s intake and Gail was not required. We took an“airport bus” (3000won or ~Aus$4 each) and, travelling light, we arrived, in Ilsan City, at Kintex which is a huge exhibition centre. Since we weren’t particularly interested in tools or engines (the current exhibits) we didn’t enter the main halls.
At Lake Park (with the largest man-made lake in Asia) we started with the musical fountain – and during our shared $2 noodle-pack lunchtime we also saw an interesting method of taking one’s dog for an outing on your bicycle.
Finding a hotel was difficult but we finally found one on the 8th, 9th and 10th floor – the room was carpeted (most unusual) and wonderfully located but was more expensive than we would have liked (~Aus $85 per night). Koreans do not like to have a fourth floor, a superstition similar to the number 13, I assume, so this lift had numbers 1, 2, 3, F, 5,..and of course there is no “ground” (G) floor in any building.
When there was no more building space in Seoul (~20 years ago) Ilsan was constructed as a satellite city. Hence the facilities are modern and include big shopping complexes such as La Festa where the Superman store exclusively sells women’s clothing and Western Dom where we saw a man suspended in mid air as he resealed windows (no, he was not cleaning them).
Back at Lake Park, here are the flags of all UNICEF countries with a childrens’ hands-across-the-world tribute monument.
There were clearly defined walking and bike-riding paths, ducks, bridges across the lake and it was a lovely place for taking wedding photos.
Since it’s autumn (called “fall” here, of course) the trees looked great. Leaves are swept up and taken away in bags, not burnt. (In fact burning of wood, etc is not allowed in Korean cities as it adds to the already significant air pollution.)
Still in this huge park is Gail entering the rose garden and then with a rose and some wooden sculptures. The sculptured worshipers are not bowing down to that old guy but rather to the TV set next to him. (Not shown here, but also of interest to us, were traditional gardens, a man-made waterfall, lots of mini-islands with boardwalks between them and a K9 sculpture, to name but a few.)
These tiny kids (there were almost 200 of them) were sent off on a run of about 3km and I was pleased to note later that, at the end, they each received a gold medal to hang around their neck. Adults were also exercising in the park and, at this stage of their program, were giving each other a series of massage pats – the instructor lady seems to be concerned that one man at the end is patting a little too low ….and perhaps she should have had a closer look at the gentleman at the end of the other row, too, who seems to have lost the woman’s back in an entirely different way. Of course there was always the lake with its single central water sprout. Generally, we walked around the Lake Park area but, for an hour or so, just before we headed home, (which took only an hour on the bus) we hired this bicycle-built-for-two for ~Aus$7, hence finally satisfying one of Gail’s main touristy aims.
