So there's this holiday that Koreans celebrate called Chuseok. It's more or less their celebration of the coming harvest season, or what we might call our Thanksgiving, celebrated (in 2011) on September 12th. The 12th was a Monday, so the Chuseok holiday provided a long weekend this year--some schools, in fact, did not return to class until the following Thursday or Friday, which provided a 5-6 day vacation for many of us foreigners. I had to travel back to Hampyeong starting on Tuesday and report to my main school on Wednesday, so it wasn't as long a weekend as it could have been, but it rocked regardless.
Considering the trek to Busan is about 2 hours and change from Gwangju, getting there on Friday can be difficult. So we decided to stay back and do what we usually do on a Friday night...stay at Aaron's pad in the city. Erik and I caught our usual evening bus to Gwangju, stayed with Aaron for the night, and prepared to travel the following Saturday morning, the 10th. Our tickets were, in fact, the final ones bought on our particular bus--one side note about the Chuseok holiday weekend is that traveling can be painfully slow all around the country, as folks travel back to their hometowns to spend time with family, and generally pack the roads everywhere. This means that your typical 2-and-a-half-hour trip from Gwangju to Busan could take anywhere between 4 and 8 hours, even though the two are only about 100 miles from each other. Luckily, our bus was really quick, and didn't take much extra time in arriving to Busan. It still provided enough time for us to just mellow out and crash for a little while. Here's a pic of the happy campers on the bus:
Relaxing in the back of the bus.
The coolest thing about Busan, from the start, is that it wasn't Hampyeong and it wasn't Gwangju. Up to this point, we had been in Korea nearly a month and hadn't really spent an extended amount of time in any other cities, let alone the 2nd largest city in South Korea. We had a hostel booked, and were able to negotiate directions with our taxi driver on the very first try--he seemed happy as a clam to have some foreigners in his cab, and even practiced a little English with us. We knew we were off to a great start, but hadn't anticipated the solid digs we'd committed to. This was, admittedly, my first experience in a hostel; the stigma of that cheap, cramped, sort of sketchy living space I've been conditioned to believe in is largely the result of friends' stories from Europe and elsewhere abroad, and I must say that this hostel had anything but those qualities. I was blown away...apparently, the guy who runs the place has some relatively deep pockets for a youngster, as well as some great English. The hostel lies completely within the 2nd floor of a major apartment complex, and it is NICE:
Here's the main kitchen area, with plenty of food supplies around.
I'm sure I looked a little ridiculous to all the other foreigners in the place (about 5-10 other ones staying that same weekend, from what seemed like all around the globe), snapping pictures of my first real hostel experience. This place really was a gem for about $30 a night.
The first order of business then, after checking into the hostel and meeting some of the other tourists, was familiarizing ourselves with transportation. Buses to the nearest subway stop, luckily, rolled by our hostel about every 10 minutes, so that was really convenient. A $1, 15-minute bus ride later, and we were able to go just about anywhere in Busan we desired. I don't have any pictures of the subway system itself, but Busan's version is about the most well kept subway you'll ever see anywhere. It's quiet, efficient, and clean; there's plenty of room to sit comfortably on any car, and plenty of English to help us navigate a bit.
Stop #1 off the subway was Haeundae, a popular area for the younger crowds who like good bars, restaurants, and beaches. It's probably most famous for its spectacular beach area, which provides some nice views of the skyline...like this:
Aaron, myself, and Erik chilling on Haeundae Beach. It was a little cold to start the weekend, as 70 degrees and overcast wasn't our idea of ideal beach weather, but we'd have our wish in about 48 hours. Really cool to just walk up and down the beach and meet foreigners--there were countless out-of-towners visiting for the holiday weekend. As Busan largely faces ocean to the south, this picture is looking back west toward the direction of our hostel from Haeundae.
Here's a shot looking the other direction (east) toward what is more or less the very southeastern tip of South Korea. What I immediately noticed is that, minus some of the large apartments visible here, this neighborhood in particular looks a bit like a hillside, seaside Mediterranean village might look like in, say, Greece or Italy. Yay or nay?
Looking west again from a giant rock overlooking a fishing hole. It's hard to spot in this picture, but our hostel is nestled somewhere between the darker mountains to the left of Erik and Aaron. And what you see as far as giant buildings go is about 1% of Busans' understood "skyline" or "downtown" area; at 3.5+ million people, there's so much more to Busan than I can really show in these posts. The city is so spread out, as you might be able to see, given these coastal mountain formations all around.
Here's a path just a few blocks from Haeundae Beach, on which we found a friendly dog who was nice enough to hang out with me for a few pictures but not quite nice enough to look at the camera.
One thing that's always a nice shock to the senses, rain or shine, is a market. Busan markets, in particular, center on all kinds of seafood, so the smells in particular are wild. This is a little bit later in the day, so things were a little quiet in Haeundae Market (which stretches on for about 4-5 blocks down this alleyway), but the next crop of pictures will give you a sense of some of the wild stuff you might see at your average market in Busan.
Here's one such example. This dude was, and I kid you not, skinning live eels (see silver stuff on table), chopping them into about 10 pieces (see blood spatters on table), and throwing the pieces in a bowl, preparing them for the grill, which was just to his right. Within about 5 minutes, he'd had pan-fried eel for customers. While I've been told it's actually really delicious, I haven't yet tried it. Something about watching the whole process go down in front of my own two eyes within my first month in Korea deterred me...
Here's another shock to the senses, but mainly just the sight. Doesn't take much thought to figure out what you're looking at here, does it? Again, this is something I haven't exactly tried (to the best of my knowledge) since coming to Korea, but I can't rule it out. It's expensive...I can tell you that much.
Coolest find in the middle of Haeundae Market, just in time for the night's rain to begin, were these fly Kolping brand jackets we found for roughly $20. We thought it best to start dressing a bit more like Koreans, so that really became the justification for these. The friendly older ladies who sold all of this nice, affordable hiking gear (Koreans will most likely think of it as solid hiking gear, whether they hike in it or not, while we might just call it "a rain jacket"), got a kick out of some foreigners seeking a more Korean look. We weren't complaining about it.
...But back to the more important stuff, like fresh fish staring right back at us.
Here's another look down a narrow alley of Haeundae Market. In the foremost tubs are mostly crabs, crawfish, and oysters.
Your guess is as good as mine as to what all of this ultimately is. Some of it I identified as beans, soybeans, different kinds of rice, and even some fresh salt and spices. Couldn't read too much, but it just looked like it needed its own picture.
Now these are a bit more familiar. Some peppers, most likely a little spicy, that will probably be used to make copious amounts of red pepper paste, a little splash of which tastes really good with just about all Korean food. You see this red pepper paste, sometimes called gochujang, most commonly with barbecue restaurants.
So that first night from Busan is a bit of a blur, and there's nothing worth noting as far as pictures go. Suffice it to say we were so excited to be in the city that we all decided on an "all you can drink" foreigner bar between the hours of 10 pm and 1 am...which was followed by a really unorganized attempt to get to a hip district with lots of clubs around 3 am. That didn't exactly happen, and we ended up losing a few folks for a while. Luckily, we made it back to our hostel around 5 am, but it's difficult to remember just exactly how we did it.
Sunday morning, then, was a little rough for everyone. We took our time getting ready for the day, and finally got the wheels spinning around noon. After some bumming around the subway and a few cool neighborhoods, we settled on a trip to an awesome temple around 3 pm.
This is Yonggungsa Temple, looking toward the temple and the sharp contrast with the coast on the pathway in. It's hard to capture in a photograph, but this was one of the most breathtaking places I'd been in my life...an awesome contrast with the waves crashing on the rocks and the much quieter area around the temple. People take a lot of pictures, but generally don't speak much around places like this.
Here's an equally dramatic view of the temple from a lower area, closer to the water. Here you can really see that it's absolutely dug into these rocks where the ocean crashes below. Saw a few dudes fishing out on the very tips of these rocks, looked like some scary business.
Here's a close-up of the main temple. The colors were cool, and again, it's difficult to show all of that with a camera, but the attention to detail in painting some of these temples is unreal. There were doors around the temple, through which you could enter and pray, give offerings, or just take cool pictures.
Awkward touristy photo.
The interior of the main temple area. Not pictured: offerings of soju, everywhere.
My best attempt to capture some of the detail around the roof. Cool scenes of the Buddha everywhere, as well as the people he seemed to have inspired and learned from.
Oh hey there, Krishna.
So I'll leave Part 1 of Busan there for now. Saw some really cool stuff in just our first 24 hours, and things got equally cooler from Sunday night through Tuesday morning. I'll leave that good stuff for the next blog post, which should possibly be up in the next 24 hours. I may or may not have sprained or broken my ankle/foot today in volleyball with my school, so if that's the case...let's just say, you'll be caught up on my life sooner rather than later.
Thanks for reading! Next post will be Busan, Part 2. Lots of love, and all the best.
-Sam Teacher
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