BUSAN

Sea, Beaches, Mountains, Temples, Shopping Malls, Harbours, Fish Fish and Fish.

This was quite a weekend. It was a weekend unplanned that worked out surprisingly great. It was tiring but fantastic to experience. From the people to the food and the fish, everything was a sight to see. It's definitely a place I would return too. 

About a week ago I found out that I will have an excellent long weekend this weekend thanks to children's day that's on the 5th of May (Tuesday) and my school was generous enough to give me the Friday and Monday off. Nice long weekend huh?! So last weekend Chary and myself went to book our KTX train tickets in Seoul Station for this weekend. We struggled to get a train ticket for earlier than 5pm on Friday for the train but since we had a big GEPIK orientation the week before it gave me enough time to complete my short course module.

Okay there is a lot that's been going on lately that I just haven't blogged about but I'll get there. 

We left Jeongok at 2pm the Friday afternoon to be in time to catch the train in Seoul Station. After a 3 hour train trip to Busan Chary and I read up on some of the things to do in Busan and created a little "to do list" but as we weren't really sure what to expect we kind of just planned really roughly and left the rest up to where we eventually will end up. We arrived at Busan station around 8 or 9 (I can't remember) and started the search for our Motel that we booked for the weekend. Firstly we had to orientate ourselves, which is really hard if you can't read hangul (Korean letters). Every billboard or shop name is in Korean and the only way you know what is what is by finding some of the closest American outlets. Eventually we decided to use Google maps to find our way. The journey to the Motel was interesting. There was a street filled with pubs, clubs and blond bimbo common prostitutes. When we found our hotel the woman asked if Chary and I are friends or how the situation works. I didn't understand any of it until the last day but it turned out that we slept in a love motel. Love motels are used by Koreans to have some fun while the kids are sleeping at home. You see there is normally like 5 people in a bachelour flat. They will wake the kids. It was extremely cheap but I still feel a little gross. We just stayed in the hotel for the night and went for beer and Chicken in town. It was quite fun to experience a different city.

Busan is like the Cape Town of South Africa. The people are more relaxed, speak better english and are far more friendly than those in Seoul. 

On Saturday we firstly went to the beach and we spent half our day at the beach basically. It was absolutely great to feel the sand between my toes and the sun kissing my skin, maybe a little too much at one point... I burned a little. We walked along the beach ( small beach) to the lighthouse took a few pictures and returned to the beach again. The route to the lighthouse was very nice. Everything in Korea is turning green now so the mountains and heels are really beautiful with it's evergreen. We had the nicest sight of the Busan bright from the lighthouse as well. We got back to the sand and walked all the way to the other point of the beach where there was a small fishers harbour. There were only small boats and speedboats drifting in the harbour. We left the beach to go visit a temple. We took a bus. This was probably not the best decision ever since that bus was so overcrowded with people that there was literally no space to move and it allowed for old men to push their crotches up against you. You can move as much as you want too they move with you. DISGUSTING!! When we arrived at the temple we ran up in like 10 min and down in 10 min but it was probably the most beautiful sea view and the largest Buddha statue I've ever seen. It was something to see and I wish we stayed there longer but we ran out of time since I had another appointment. Waxing. We took things chilled the evening by hanging out in the biggest department store in the world according to Guinness world records. That was quite a lot of fun although everything is pretty expensive. Majority of it are big brands like Gap and Polo. We had dinner there and left to go rest in our Motel. My feet were non-existent. 

The Sunday morning we slept in a little. We were planning on starting early but it was raining so hard that the bed became quite a hibernating session. We eventually got out and immediately bought ourselves umbrellas. Mine was a nice blue polka dot transparent umbrella. Super cheap one too. But it looked cute and matched my whole outfit. Blue K-way jacket, Jeans and blue sandals. I'm blue dubble de dubble di. Kapouw! We ate lunch at the famous fish market the afternoon and man it as a little disappointing. Besides for the fact that the fish was extremely expensive they hardly use any spice to cook the fish. No nothing. The fish was extremely soft and flaky if I may add which I guess made it really nice. Underneath the market there was a complete fish market with about a 100 stalls. Every stall had a whole bunch of buckets filled with live fish. This was quite sad to see because some of those sea animals are not pack animals. They walk single in the wild and now they are completely stressed in these circumstances. But there was something of everything, small to big crayfish to monter crabs, really smart octopuses and fish species by the millions as well as a lot of shellfish. It was something to see. After lunch we rolled back to the Motel, I went to take a catnap and Chary went to Cathlic church. We went out again later the night to meet up with two girls we met at the 

orientation. But before we went there we just had to experience the lantern festival in town. It was beautiful. Absolutely stunning. So many colours and figures as well as historical stories. Really, really nice stuff. 

I also experienced my first Korean obsession this night. So irritating. Very sleek the guard offered me a pamflet of the lantern festival just to jump into a conversation with me. After asking where I'm from and what I'm doing in Korea he asked for a picture of me with him. The blond at work. I'm a nice girl; I know they don't know blond so I don't mind the picture taking thing, yet. Then later conversation continued. In Korea it's really rude to refuse an invite. Chary and I got inviting out for dinner by 2 Korean guys whose my age (24). They sticked us for beer and chicken and this is really becoming quite a favourite of mine. They took us to the party central of Seomyeon to a chilled restaurant. Now understand that this is not really the type of dinner party you have in mind. With guys who really speak limited english things can get interesting on the one hand and really irritating on the other. Another thing to notice about the Korean culture is that they really don't know personal space. They will touch you, push you, hang on you, grind you and even touch your face and not knowing that this is an invasion of the ego bubble. It's really annoying and something really hard to get used too. This guy, after knowing him for an hour, told me I need to stay single because his coming to visit in a months time and wants to see me and he told me I' m really cute a few times and pulled my cheek?! Befriending Koreans are positive since it's the quickest way to learn Korean but the rest that comes with it is not always so cool and the worst is you can't explain it to them since they don't understand our culture, can't speak the language and are just way to set in their ways. I mean how do you explain something as abstract as an Ego? Impossible!!! 

Yes I speak as if my ego is huge. It's really not; they just invade my small cm ego way too much. Anyway that's what you get for standing out. After dinner we met up with the other 2 girls and had a lovely evening in a pub. 

The Monday morning I stood up irritated and really just wanted the one thing I can't have. Then again in Korea the girls can wear the shortest dresses ever but their shoulders must be close. So wearing a pair of jeans and a tank top is a no go. I pretended not to know about this this weekend since I very much look like a tourist who doesn't know her way around and yet a lady stopped me at the subway platform to tell me I need to close my shoulders but she spoke Korean and touched my straps and my shoulder and I just continued as if I have no idea what she's saying. We took a bus to a old traditional village and spent majority of the day in the village. I also got to write my first postcards not that I have any idea how to write a postcard. There after we went to the Lotte super and the Busan Tower. 

Busan Tower was mesmerising. We saw the whole city at night time. The lights coloured in this stunning picture into a beautiful night view. Breathtaking experience. It's one of those places where you could sit for hours and just think about your life or not even think. We ended up in a Irish pub to end off the weekend with a nice beer. Very refreshing and just to mention rest our feet.