Beautiful Busan

This weekend I journeyed to the far off land of Busan, South Korea. Actually, it’s not that far off…it’s about an hour by train. Saturday morning I boarded the southbound train that dropped me off at Gupo Station about an hour later. I peeked out the window a bit on the way down, and the Korean countryside really isn’t anything to write home about right now (ironic, because that’s exactly what I’m doing). It’s rather barren and dead-looking. Angie was there at the station waiting to pick me up. As soon as I left the station, I saw this man in a suit standing with his eyes closed and his head pressed against a tree. Angie and I positioned ourselves so that it looked like I was taking a picture of her, and I managed to capture this tree-hugger in action. There certainly are some strange people out there.

Angie and I hopped on the subway, and then we had a 40 minute ride back to her neighborhood. Her friend Shannon called on our way back and asked if we wanted to go to the salon with her. Angie has been thinking of going red, so we went with her to a very posh Korean salon. They put our coats and purses in a locker, served us cocoa and cappuccinos, and set me up with a laptop and the internet while I waited for Ang and Shannon. They even had the fanciest toilet I’ve ever seen. It had a heated seat, as well as a variety of buttons that did things I didn’t dare to try.

After the salon we did a bit of shopping in an underground mall at one of the subway stops, and then set out to find something to eat. We ended up eating at a little Korean restaurant and enjoying some very tasty “Sam-gep-sal.” It’s like Korean bacon, but it’s thicker and more fatty. However, I was still quite hungry after dinner so I bought some mandu (dumplings) at a street stand, and even though they were cold they were still quite delicious.

We then headed back to Shannon’s, tried on our new stuff, and headed out to a western style bar called Star Face. A very friendly, very drunk Korean man offered us a large glass of Hite, and a very androgynous looking Korean woman insisted on buying us shots of tequila. The laid back bar turned into a little dance party, and after joining the dancing Koreans for a little bit we headed out in search of a bigger, better dance club. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find one that charged less than 15,000 won to get in, so we made an early morning pit stop at Haeundae Beach so I could touch the Yellow Sea, and then we went home and went to bed instead.

Sunday was a busy day. We didn’t get to bed until 4am so we didn’t wake up until 1pm. At that point the day was already half over so we had to get up and get out butts moving. Our first stop was Haeundae Beach so I could see it during the day. It was packed, even during the winter, and a couple of guys apparently though it was warm enough to be out playing Frisbee in their little bathing suits. Weird. It’s quite beautiful though, and it’s neat to see the city right on the edge of the beach. It’s something you don’t really see at home.



After the beach we headed to Nampo-dong, a little shopping district in Busan. We had “Gam-ja-tong” for dinner…it’s a potato soup with some weeds and huge meat-covered ox backbones in it. It comes to your table in a large steaming bowl, and then you keep it bubbling on the gas burner in the middle of your table. It looks disgusting, especially when you’re done eating because all you’re left with is the carnage. Despite the way it looks, it was actually rather delicious and quite filling. We also got little tiny dried silvery fish that Angie said tasted like fish jerky (I can’t eat that stuff), and some dried fish meat that was fried. I tried it and promptly spit it out. I simply can’t eat fish if it tastes like fish.

While we were at the restaurant there was a huge party of older Koreans at the table next to us. When they left they came over to our table and said “Ya-bu-da, mi-an-ham-nida,” which means, “beautiful, I’m sorry.” I’m assuming they were apologizing for being so loud, but that’s not the point. The point is that I understood what she said! That was probably the best part of my weekend because it gave me hope that I can actually learn the language. Go me!

Angie and I headed home around 8:30pm because we were just so tired. We watched Pride and Prejudice and hit the hay. I headed out Monday morning around 9:30am. Of course I missed the train I wanted to take by 7 minutes so I had to wait half an hour for the next one. I did fall asleep on the train, and when I woke up it was snowing. Real snow, not just the occasional flake we’ve been getting. My first thought was, “Shit. I slept through my stop. Now I’m somewhere near Seoul where it’s cold enough to get this much snow. I’m going to be late for school.” But then I looked at the time on the screen and realized that I had not actually missed my stop, it was just snowing in Daegu. I took a cab home, and it was ridiculously expensive for the actual distance we covered. They get this much snow so infrequently that no one knows how to drive in it. They all go about 10 mph, which is a huge difference from their usual pace.

But I made it home safely, and now it’s back to work for another week. We start a new curriculum this week, so hopefully the transition will go smoothly.