Busan

This past weekend was the Golden Week here in Korea, meaning that the weekend was extended by not one, but TWO national holidays: Children's Day (May 5) and Buddha's Birthday (May 6). I took advantage of the time off by taking a train from Seoul to Busan.

Busan and Seoul are in opposite corners of South Korea.

The trip was a grand adventure from the start. I had somehow convinced myself that the train that my friend Eugenia and I were taking was departing at 1:45pm. It was actually scheduled to leave at 1:15pm. Had I been more attentive of this, I wouldn't have eaten lunch at such a leisurely pace...

I discovered my mistake at 12:30 (yep, 45 minutes before the train left) while I was walking back home to finish packing. Yes. I was not yet all packed. Guys. I'm the person who's at the airport 2 hours before take off. I'm the dude who spent 3+ years corralling large groups of people, rushing them to the airport, and checking them in so we could make it to our destinations on time...WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME?!

Anyhow, I got to the station JUST in time to see the train pull away. KTX (the Korean high speed train) waits for no one, so I met Eugenia, apologized profusely, found out the only tickets left were more expensive tickets on the next train out (otherwise we wouldn't have been able to go to Busan), apologized even more profusely, got the ticket, and waited for the next train. Eugenia works at a different location is Seoul from me, so it was nice to have some extra time so that we could catch up.

First class on a high speed train wasn't too bad either.

Busan is about 280 miles (450 kilometers) from Seoul, and the trip took about 2.5 hours.

When we arrived, we were met by Cierra, a friend from school orientation who works in Busan; Sahil, another orientation friend who works in Daejeon; Leona, Cierra's roommate; and Melody, Leona's friend who came to visit.

Most of Friday night was spent at the Trick Eye Museum, an optical illusion museum in Busan. This place gets five stars for cleverness.

Cue picture overload.

Whatever. I was tired of bumping my head anyway...

...On second thought, who needs a head when a head can be eaten?

One thing I noticed about Busan is that people are not as hesitant about approaching people as they are in Seoul. Take, for example, this waitress, who told us that she wanted more foreign friends.

Swapping phone info with Cierra...apparently, they've already gone to a noraebang together.

On Saturday, after chowing down at a church lunch, we headed for Yongkung Temple. Yep, another Buddhist temple. If you thought the last picture blitz was crazy, just you wait.

Chinese zodiac statues

The Ox and me

Buddha's Birthday lanterns

Temple by the ocean. Amazing.

Good luck nose rub

Basically the same as the last picture, except I'm in it, just in case proof is needed.

I'm not sure what the story is with those domes, but they look amazing, and that's all I need to know.

The trip back from the temple was daunting. A lot of people were waiting for a bus back to town (the nearest subway station was about a 30 minute drive away). We waited for 15 minutes, saw a jam-packed bus pass us by, and decided that we were better off walking closer to civilization to hail a cab...this walk ended up being a mile plus journey, and we'd already walked quite a bit. On the way, we ended up meeting this great Korean family that spoke some English. They were super friendly and changed the experience from an inconvenient ordeal to a pleasant time.

On Sunday, I went to church, met a very excited (and flighty) person, evaded a drunk, and joined my friends for the day's activities. We heard about a fortress called Geumjeongsangseong. Located up in the mountains, we heard that the fortress loop trail took 3.5 hours to hike, so we decided to check it out.

It turns out that the 3.5 hour time can be applied to horses, but not people. We made it a quarter of the way around the fortress in that time.

Still, there were some pretty great views:

East Gate

We saw this wall, and about 10 minutes later, we lost sight of it. We felt sure that we must have taken a wrong turn until we saw...

This. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Busan.

We met some random folks from Uzbekistan and one of them had an idea to take a picture with all of us. "Memories!" he said.

North Gate

Alright, the views were spectacular.

We went down the trail to Beomeosa Buddhist Temple.

We found several amazing lanterns; I'm guessing they were there for Buddha's Birthday.

There comes a point in life wherein a person realizes that his blog post is going on for a LONG time. At that point, the person becomes fairly basic in his descriptions of what happened over Golden Weekend. Such will be the case here.

Later that night, we went to look at Gwangan Bridge.

Onward to Monday - we made our way to Haeundae Beach. I really enjoyed this day. The weather was perfect, and I ended up joining in a few games. I played catch with a kid, tossed a frisbee around with a few guys, and played netless volleyball with a group of exchange students. I find that I enjoy playing sports more if it happens sporadically.

Oops, forgot. Basic descriptions.

First, beach.

Then, Dongbaekseom Island, where the 2005 APEC Summit was held.

APEC Summit room

Next, seafood.

Seasoned eel. A bit expensive, but tasty.

Finally, Mr. Cho.

This man approached us and talked with us for about 45 minutes about the same number of topics. It was awesome!

Monday was pretty relaxing, which is what we needed after the prior two days.

Tuesday, I packed, made it to the train station (with plenty of time), and went back to Seoul, but not before ordering up some seafood bibimbap.

This trip definitely gave me a desire to see more of Korea. What an amazing place!

Suwon

안녕하세요 --> ahn nyeong ha seh yo --> Hi!

On Monday of this week, the school term ended, which meant that a two day term break followed. So the work week looks like this:

• Monday: Class
• Tuesday: No class
• Wednesday: No class
• Thursday: Class
• Friday: Class, day ends at 11am

A bit random, especially considering that there's a four day weekend around the corner, but hey...a break is a break.

One of the teachers recommended that we go to Suwon on Tuesday. Considering that the weather had been pretty rainy earlier in the week, and also considering that Suwon was over an hour away by train, I felt less than enthused about going.

But boy, am I glad I went. Yes, it did take a while to get there, but I was able to eat a waffle with strawberry butter, so that made the wait worthwhile. Yes, they make and sell those as street food here.

Once we arrived at the station our destination was only a 4500 won (~$4.50) cab ride away. We started off at a palace called Hwaseong Haenggung. Though it cost a bit to get in an there wasn't a whole lot that was different from other palaces I've seen in Seoul, there were still some great scenes.

When we arrived at the palace, we noticed a large, golden Buddha statue. We decided that would be our next destination.

More lanterns for Buddha's Birthday!

This statue is about 20 feet tall. That's a big Buddha.

Then, we climbed stairs.

And then we climbed some more.

Next...oh my gosh.

THIS VIEW.

We had made it to the top of Hwaseong Fortress. The fortress is a UNESCO World Heritage site. You can walk along the fortress wall, which goes in a circle for 5 km or just over 3 miles. The sky and temperature were incredible (I thank the rain over the previous days for this), and the scenery was...oh man. I think this is my favorite place I've been to in Korea thus far.

WARNING: More pictures.

Dragon train, anyone?

And THEN...my phone died, so I didn't get to take any more pictures. But a few of us finished the entire loop just in time to see the sunset! [Cue triumphant music.]

After that, we saw ANOTHER Buddhist temple and went to a noraebang (Korean karaoke) for a bit...THAT was awesome, because two members of the group were supposedly anti-karaoke. Well, as of Tuesday, those two are new men.

It was a long train ride back, but for Suwon, it was well worth it.

Next time, we'll have to take the illustrious restroom tour.

Term one, done and done

It's just past 11pm. I can't believe how quickly time flies. I've been teaching in Korea for two months now, which means that my first term is over.

Though there are a great many ways in which I hope to improve as a teacher over this next term, I have enjoyed teaching during this term. I've had the opportunity to meet some very gracious students.

These good people took me to lunch today at TGI Friday's (when in Seoul, eat American!) where we had a great time chatting. Some have lived abroad (or will soon live abroad), some are learning English for work, and some just want to communicate with foreigners. Good people. I hope I have a few of them in future classes!

For now, I'll enjoy listening to the rain fall outside of my window.