This past weekend I left the Seoul area for the first time since arriving in Korea. Me, Rebecca, Amy, and Frisch decided to head to Busan, a city on the southern tip of Korea, with no real
plans or hotel reservations. We knew it was going to be a good weekend to go because we had heard about a fireworks festival happening.
bullet trains are really popular in Asia (they're the same ones i took in Japan 2 years ago). We
basically got from the top of the country to the very bottom in 2.5 hours, which was awesome. We bought some juice boxes full of soju and drank them on the train ride.
We got to Busan around midnight and took cabs to Haeundae beach, which is the most popular
spot in the city, and met up with our friend Tom who lives/teaches in the Busan area. We found a hotel pretty quickly with enough room for all 5 of us. That night we walked around Haeundae beach which is beautiful. Busan kinda reminds me of the Miami of Korea, with posh hotels and such lined along the beach. The girls headed home around 3 while the boys decided to go to a casino until late that night.
The next morning we headed to the beach to check it out in the daylight. We laid around and took a walk along the beach. I collected handfulls of sea glass, for some reason there was tons!
After our relaxing afternoon on the beach we headed to a seafood restaurant to try out some new cuisine. Now until 2 months ago I was sure I was allergic to shellfish, however, right before I left I decided to try crab... and guess what? I wasn't allergic. Since arriving in Korea I have also tried more crab, shrimp, and to add to the list I tried clams in Busan. Because of my "allergy" I had never had clams before, and neither had Amy or Rebecca. The restaurant we went to was right on the beach, the perfect setting for our first clam adventure. The clams were plucked right out of a tank sitting in front of us and we cooked them ourselves on a little fire at our table. They were pretty good, I guess, I don't really get it though, they don't have much flavor to me.
After our seafood we headed to starbucks and a convenience store to pick up some dessert and some wine. We took a cab to Gwangali beach around 6, but we maybe should have gone earlier. The beach was PACKED with people. There was a fireworks show starting at 8 so we spread out our blanket and opened our bottle of wine. We passed the time by doing some sparklers, eating our desserts, and drinking. There had to be literally close to 100 thousand people on the beach we were at. The beach looks out over the ocean and a huge bridge that looks kinda the brooklyn bridge meets the golden gate. Around 8 the fireworks show started. The fireworks were pretty much the coolest fireworks show I've ever seen. They were set to music and half of the fireworks were set off of the bridge.
After the fireworks we went to a bar in the area for a drink. We were sitting there and all of sudden 2 kids from Semester at Sea walked in. I hadn't really been friends with them on the ship, but i recognized them and Frisch knew them. It was crazy to just run into them at the bar and it reminded me how small the world can be. After that we headed back to Haeundae beach and went out to a bar called "thursday party".
The next morning we had to check out by noon so we headed to the beach again and hung out for an hour or so... then we headed to the rail station and bought tickets back to Seoul on the bullet train leaving just 30 mins later. So convenient. They even played a movie on the train back! We got back to Seoul around 6 and had dinner, and I was back in my apartment by 8. Overall a really fun weekend of traveling... It felt really good to get out of my comfort zone of Seoul and sleep somewhere other than my comfy apartment for a whole weekend.
looks like an awesome time was had by all
ReplyDeleteyour loving and wonderful mother