Breaking Down the Barriers of Travel (Starfield Suwon)

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I’m not going lie … being in an Asian country overwhelms me.  I know it is more than just the non-Latin alphabet that throws me off because we had some intense culture shock in Vietnam and none in Greece.  I effortlessly guided us around Japan deluged with months of intense preparation.  I dodged the confusion in China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand by hiring tour guides.  Here in Korea we are on our own so I just have to suck it up and remind myself that challenging my comfort level and changing my perspective are the top reasons I’m obsessed with travel.  Otherwise, I could just travel around the world at Epcot!

 

Heading out to explore after work, we were ambushed by a couple of unexpected obstacles.  Tonight’s planned adventure would require using the subway so we needed to buy a T-Money card which gets you on any transportation in Korea (tapping as you enter and leave).  Conveniently available at the 7-11 on the 2nd floor of our hotel, the T-Money card was fairly easy to buy (₩ 4,000 each) despite trying to figure out the process with the cashier who didn’t speak any English (as expected).  The struggle started when she managed to communicate that we could only load the T-Money card using cash…which led to our next problem.  Up to this point we haven’t been able to get an ATM to work for us and were successfully using credit cards for all purchases.  At the ATM machine (often found next to convenience stores), smarty Chris figured out that apparently you have to choose “foreign card” and select the credit card option (even though it is a debit card).  But I’ve (now) read that finding an ATM that works (for foreigners) can still be hit or miss – and our Fidelity cards are still not working.  Thankfully Chris had another debit card that he got to work. We snatched the cash and went back to load the T-Money card.  However, at this point we had to switch to Plan B for the night because we hadn’t expected the T-Money and ATM piece to take so long.

 

Instead, we headed to the Starfield Suwon, a massive mega mall with 8 floors underground and 8 floors above ground.  It’s not that we are mall people by any stretch but I was intrigued by this brand-new beast that recently opened in January 2024.

 

The size of 46 football stadiums, the Starfield Suwon is a sprawling shopping complex home to numerous retail stores and various unique facilities.

 

Instantly the wow factor of this gigantic modern mall was a 10 out of 10.  If you want to get out, it could be a great solution to escape a day of heavy rain, a heat wave, or the freezing cold.

 

What particularly makes this mall so famous is its elegant library.  The impressive original Starfield Library is in Seoul's COEX mall but they made this one way bigger and better.  They weren’t messing around when they spread it over four floors!  It really is a real library; the first floor is filled with books and magazines for anyone to use.  (The books above that height are mostly decorative boxes designed to look like books.)  Thanks to its sheer size and unique design, the library looks amazing in photos and is an Instagram hotspot.

 

The dazzling Starfield Suwon Library occupies the center of the fourth to seventh floors of the mall.  Note the Jack Daniels (bar) sign is only a temporary pop-up event that runs ~3 months until September 1.


For me the mall was a been-there-done-that experience.  It got us out, we saw something cool, but I wouldn’t need to go again.  (Unlike the Hwaseong Fortress which is still beckoning me to come back.)

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