Busan!

Last weekend I adventured to Busan, the most Southern city of South Korea. Christina and I had decided to visit Busan a couple weekends back when we had heard of the Pusan Film Festival, which is one of the largest, if not the largest film festival in Asia. The Pusan Film Festival seemed just as good as an excuse as any to visit another city in Korea. After asking around, we accumulated four others, Nate (originally from Oregon, had lots of discussions on his 7 week cross country trip which consisted of visiting mostly national parks around the country – complete amazing madness!), Tailor (from Minnesota whom I am going to climb a mountain with next weekend with - hehe), Greg and Danielle (couple who is also from Minnesota who are complete fun to hang out with, Danielle and I do yoga together). Danielle, Greg, and I all work at the same campus and work around 1-8 pm while Nate, Tailor, and Christina all work at the other Poly campus and work 9-6.

After work on Friday, Greg, Danielle, and I caught a bus to meet the others at Seoul Station, where journeyed in a fast pace train (went up to 304 km/hour) to Busan. Koreans take their train rides very seriously, they act reserved and are stocked with electronic gadgets. On the contrary, we were especially giddy holding cans of Hite.. A senior Korean man hit the back of my chair and yelled “quiet!” Christina’s reaction, who considers herself to be a ‘hothead’, contrasted the rest of our silence and said ‘don’t let him bully you!” Let me remind you that Korea is a patriarchal country that believes strongly in ‘respecting your elders’. Typically, because we are all ‘white’ we are excused from customs, this older gentleman did not believe this to be a situation where we were exempted. Quiet we weren’t for the rest of the ride, and arrived a little after one am.

After settling in to our hostel, Nate, Christina, Taylor and I headed out to explore central Busan’s nightlife. After walking around we decided to make ourselves comfortable at ‘Fuzzy Navel’, an establishment both Frommers and Lonely Planet recommended. After the bar I am sorry to say that I fought the law and the law won. Before I explain, let me provide background information. Chicago, as you all know is known for jaywalking, however in Korea it is illegal. However, law here is more of a suggestion then an absolute, so when breaking a law, you can easily negotiate if you have a few thousand won available. So, we entered a busy intersection and I being use to jaywalking (need to get myself out of this habit) walked across the street and stood in the middle until I could make the rest of the way through. Nate, being a good friend, followed me halfway, while the others stayed behind. All of a sudden I saw a policeman running towards me from the other side of the street! He stopped traffic and then instead of helping us cross the other half of the street, escorted us back to where we started. I simply played dumb and told him that I do not understand where to cross the street?! He then showed me the tunnel you take to cross over and I smiled, said “kamsamnida” and quickly went on my way, no wons needed!

The next day we traveled to Busan’s most famous beach, Haengdae, which really is a great beach. During the summer months, this beach is so packed that you cannot even get in the water! Luckily the cold weather pushes beach bums away and we were free to run. We spent Saturday going through the beach area, saw two movies (go see 5 five minutes in heaven) and then met up with the rest of the crowd to eat at the fish market. Since it was nighttime, the fish market was mostly closed with the exception of a few restaurants. After dinner we all found ourselves cozied in a large booth with pitchers. It was a great way to end a fantastic day.

Sunday we saw Abnormal Activity, not sure if it was because we hadn’t slept much all weekend, but I wasn’t in a state of hyperventilation that I am accustomed to while watching scary movies. Koreans in movie theaters is a complete trip! They are very expressive while watching a movie so we constantly heard nervous sounds from the audience. For those of you, who know my dear aunt Joan; imagine a movie theatre full of Joans! We then traveled through the rest the fish market during the day which was a much better experience. I am not sure what it is about fish markets, but they make me so excited! I love that people search out into ocean, catch these live animals and then bring them here for you to not only look at, but to eat! I took plenty of pictures and talked to all of the creatures that were still alive! While saying ‘hello, oh hello’ to one of the craps, the man behind the counter responded, “Hi! How are you?” I jumped, since most Koreans do not speak English to this extent, looked up, smiled and said “umm hi!”

The way back we were all exhausted but agreed that Busan is a place to revisit. The next time we go will be to go to the aquarium where you can swim in a large fish tank that holds numerous sea life such as fish, turtles, sharks…hehe..CANNOT WAIT! Anyway I hear its good old Columbus Weekend back in the states, so hope you all had a wonderful weekend as well. Love you all, email updates por favor!