Busan

Alright, this is really old news, but Mel and I spent a few days in Busan two weeks ago and I just haven't had a chance to post about the trip. Busan is the second largest city in Korea (after Seoul of course) and it's located about 5 hours away by train on the south-eastern coast. We had considered taking a job in Busan before deciding on our Suwon gig, so we'd been interested in visiting the city for quite a while.

To travel to Busan we took the hi-speed KTX train for the first time, and it was a comfortable ride. We arrived around 11pm on Friday night after work, so after a quick walk around the station (where there was a creepy Russian red light district) we stopped at a love motel and called it a night.

On Saturday we took the subway to Haeundae Beach, which has been called Korea's best beach. Though the sun wasn't really on our side, the beach was too beautiful to resist! The waves were huge, so taking a note from the locals we rented inner tubes and surfed the waves. It was so, so, so much fun! Unfortnately, it was also pretty cold so we retreated back to our umbrella (ella eh eh) to relax for a bit.


We weren't the only ones with an umbrella either, check out the picture of our community of parasols. The rows of umbrellas went on forever as this beach was packed.


Next we went to the Busan aquarium, which our friend recommended and was conveniently located right on the beach. It was pretty cool- about three floors of exhibits and a 360 degree glass tunnel that had all sorts of creatures swimming around us.


The aquarium was connected to a food court that had the common Korean fair, but also -shock of shocks- a Dairy Queen! We knew this was too good to be true, because there are no Dairy Queen chains in Korea (previous burger cravings had led me to research this...), but I ordered a Blizzard anyway. It came from an authentic looking Blizzard machine, it was served in a Blizzard cup, but it tasted like ass! Fake!


In the evening we took the subway to the port to check out the boats and the huge fish market that Busan is famous for. I don't like to eat seafood but it was definately cool to check out. The building was the size of one of our malls at home with vendors at every stop, selling anything you could imagine (and probably some things you couldn't). After buying your octopus, fish or whatever you could take your catch upstairs where the on-site restaurant could cook it up for you. Cool! Not tempted, we went for some chicken galbi and it was really good!


After supper we met up with fellow displaced Frederictonian Livia, who Mel used to work with at Read's. She is teaching at a public school in Busan and is an all around cool person. We went out for some drinks and then to the requistite norebang. This time we went to the CNN norebang, which was some interesting branding. After some good times and a particularly soulful rendition of "Ghostbusters", Livia kindly offered us a place to stay so we crashed at her place.


Livia had a cat! *squeels* Thank you Dorian, for putting up with our neurotic smothering. And btw, it was such a nice apartment- screw you english villagey!!! (kidding, kidding...)


In the afternoon we went back to Busan station to catch our train home. But first, we returned to the seedy Russian district where big scary blonde women in bright red lipstick were sitting outside of each pub and gangs roamed the streets. Curious, we stopped for lunch. I'm pretty sure the Russian mafia was sitting two tables over, and at one point this big guy started rapping on the other side of the room. It was time to go.


Springer's Final Thought: Busan was fantastic and the beach was really nice. It was the first place in Korea that I'd been that seemed unique, and by that I mean that a street in Suwon looks the same as any street in Seoul or Daegu to me. But Busan had a different, more relaxed feel. The buildings were built into the hills, the taxi fares started 10 cents cheaper and the air smelled of the sea. The people were a little less stylish and they didn't feel the need to wear life jackets and swim caps at the beach, so they were OK in my books.