This past weekend we had a holiday. This was the final three-day weekend we have left during our time here, so we decided to spend the entire weekend traveling. We went down to Busan—a warm beach city in the southeast of Korea—with several of our coworkers. David, our coworker James and I decided to take the overnight bus on Thursday night to beat the traffic that was sure to arise on Friday. The trip took about five hours, from 11 to 4 in the morning. I slept a bit on the bus, but it was far from a restful sleep. We got into the Busan bus station very early, and hung around until the subway opened at 5:10 in the morning. The bus station is at the very north end of the city, so we took the line all the way down to the coast to check out the city’s large fishmarket (Jagalchi fish market). Although it was still very early when we got there, there were many different stalls of fish open. The whole place reeked of scales and sea—but it was worth a good long glance over. We meandered down the alleys, looking at both live and dead selections of fish. There were several cats in the market, which were fun to look at. David took a lot of pictures of the boats and the vendors. Eventually we stopped at a vendors hut and ate a spicy dish of eel and peppers.
A man and his dog, which amused us quite thoroughly.
One happy cat. :)
Ships resting after a long dawn of fishing.
One thing that immediately struck us about Busan is how clear the air is there. By international standards it’s by no means clean… but compared to Seoul the sky was much bluer and beautiful! When we finished our food at the fish market we took the subway back north toward Geumjeong mountain. It’s a huge mountain in the middle of the city, but even though it’s surrounded by Busan, climbing the mountain really made us feel back in nature. It was pretty gorgeous 540m hike up the mountain. We got to the top and followed our Lonely Planet Guide’s instructions to get to a pretty remote temple on the mountain’s other side. Seokbulsa, as the temple is called, took 4 hours to get to in total. The hike there was pretty strenuous, but it was among the more unique temples I’ve seen in our stay here. The place is basically a crevasse in the mountainside, with large Buddhas etched straight into the huge towering stones. Because it was Buddha’s birthday, the place was filled with worshippers, so we were shuffled around from place to place.
On our way up the mountain we found a pretty cool little Buddhist prayer cave and stopped to investigate.
James looking out over the city.
Seokbulsa.
The coin offerings of Buddha's birthday.
After lingering a while on the mountainside and eating a free meal of bibimbap and soup at the temple we hiked back down and caught a bus back to the subway. The beach was calling my name (for the first time in 8 months, I was sweating from the outdoor temperature!!!) so we took the subway to Haeundae beach. The place was packed with foreigners and Koreans alike. We found a spot and tried out the water. It was quite frigid. I only edged in up to my knees, but James and David barreled into the waves (and consequently screamed like little girls because it was so cold). After an hour or so, our coworkers Steve and Meekyung arrived on the beach to join us. They’d decided to take the Friday bus down, but the traffic caused their ride to be nearly seven hours long! We stayed out on the beach for several hours, soaking in some long missed sunlight. Meekyung, like most Koreans, was shying away from the sunlight. In most Asian cultures, white skin is considered ideal, since only manual laborers should have sun-darkened skin. Once the sun set we went to Papa John’s and ate some delicious pizza! It was almost comparable to American style, but not really.
The whole city was pretty much booked for cheap rooms that weekend, so on Friday night, David, James and I had to go stay at a jimjilbang. This is a public bath that Koreans love to frequent. Men and women have separate facilities and everyone gets stark naked. There were five or six large pools with many different temperatures and jets. There were also three or four different sauna rooms and masseuses for a little extra money. It was such a surreal experience, being butt naked in a room with about 150 other women. I was the only foreigner, so I naturally drew attention anyway. I wandered around by myself, trying different pools, until a Korean woman started talking to me. Her English was fluent, which is rare here. She quickly befriended me and took me around to all of the different saunas and baths, teaching me about the health benefits of all of them. Despite the weirdness of being naked, it was an incredibly relaxing and overall very enjoyable experience. After the baths I changed into pajamas and went up to the sleeping room, where you get a thin blanket and sleep on the floor with everyone. I found David and James and crashed in the corner. While the room was loud and hot, I was pretty exhausted from the poor night of sleep on the bus the night before, so I slept the entire night.
The next morning we hit up Dunkin Donuts for breakfast and then went with Steve and Meekyung to Haedong Yonggungsa Temple. It’s a very picturesque place that’s right by the ocean. There are rocks and waves right at its base. We walked around and explored it for over an hour. David went a little nuts with the camera again.
Us together at the temple.
A cool bridge David found.
Little Buddhas.
Two giant golden pigs! They were quite cheerful looking.
We went to Taejongdae Park afterward, where 150-meter cliffs drop into the sea. A ferry carted us around the peninsula, so we got a great seaside view of the cliffs. We also got to see the cliffs up close when the boat dropped us off and let us climb the rocks for about a half hour. They were rather impressive, but they didn’t come close to the Cliff of Moher in Ireland. Guess we’re just too spoiled cliff-wise! Apparently the Taejongdae cliffs are a popular suicide spot: about 100 people a year throw themselves off. At least, that’s what we heard word of mouth.
It started raining really hard, so we decided to head back to our rooms and check into the hotel. After we made the long commute back, we went out to eat sashimi (aka slabs of raw fish with lots of side dishes. The meal was huge and absolutely delicious! I’ve always been a really big fan of sushi, so the meal was like a miniature dream come true. =)
I crashed early that night, exhausted from all of our traveling and lack of quality sleep. The next morning we went to a local restaurant that offered a full-blown American brunch (which is difficult to find over here). Eggs, waffles, sausage, bacon, toast, juice, coffee, salad and hashbrowns for $8. It was heavenly. I haven’t had an American style breakfast like that in over 10 months. After out leisurely brunch, we headed over to the aquarium. Busan’s aquarium is the largest in Korea, and the entire thing is underground. There were all sorts of sea creatures, including a huge tank with loads of sharks and giant groupers bigger than me! We were only able to spend an hour there before we had to leave and catch our train back to Incheon. We took the KTX train, which is the fastest train in Korea. We got back to Seoul within 3 hours (almost half the time of the bus). Most of the time we were going up to 190 mph! It hardly felt like we were moving either. The train was so smooth.
Our week back has been long so far. Watched the finale of Lost last night (in which the series has been cemented in my heart up there with Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings). Was grumpy with the kids today. It’s so hard to control my bad moods around them sometimes. I try not to let it affect them, but it’s almost impossible.
Next weekend we’re looking forward to going fishing in the Yellow Sea with some of our coworkers. I’m sure I’ll have a nice juicy blog about that in the week to come.
