10/13: Busan

Map of South Korea to give you an idea of where Seoul is and where Busan is. South Korea is about the size of Indiana. I live somewhere between Buyeo and Songnisan National Park, south of Seoul.

View of Busan from 75 Square on Taejongdae Island 

UN Memorial

Wearing the bright orange trash bag on my head at the Lotte Giant Baseball Game

Busan Tower

Right outside the Jagalchi Fish Market

Busan Aquarium by Haundae Beach

Busan Station

Haundae Beach

House Slippers at the hostel--Pretty much sums up my life in Korea

75 Square

Riding a huge robotic dog at the carnival

Lotte Giants Baseball Game

Jagalchi Fish Market

Gwangalli "Diamond" Bridge Busan

            Since we had another long weekend, my friend, Abby and I decided to head down to Busan to explore the awesome city. Busan is the second largest city in Korea located on the southern coast of the peninsula.

            So Thursday morning we boarded the train and made the four hour treck south to Busan. I loved the train ride as it allowed me to see even more of Korea. Korea is a very small country, about the size of Indiana and therefore the topography doesn't change that much from city to city. There are a lot of mountains (mountains/hills) and a lot of rivers that flow in between them and of course, multiple high rise apartments that dot the landscape. It’s hard for me to tell whether or not Korea is pretty. Everywhere you go there are beautiful, green, lush mountains but in front of all of those mountains are always, huge, white apartment buildings that don’t have much architecture to them and instead look like massive rectangle buildings.

            Anyways, we arrived in Busan and decided to immediately head to our hostel, Mr. Egg. Not sure if I mentioned this or not but Korea is obsessed with shoes and taking them off when you get into a building. It is really pretty weird and annoying for me, every time you go into a restaurant you have to take your shoes off and then spend time putting them back on when you are done. Anyways, we get to our hostel and of course have to take our shoes off but the house shoes they have are so, so small. We were staying in the women’s dorm so they only had little high-heeled in door shoes and they barely fit my toes. Half of my foot was hanging out the back. Welcome to Korea, land of small feet!

            We got settled and immediately wanted to set out to explore and see some of Busan. We were planning on going to the Lotte Giants baseball game that night so headed straight to the stadium to buy tickets for the game. We thought the game would be completely sold out because it was near playoffs but there were plenty of seats left so we bought our tickets and then wandered around a bit outside the stadium. It was so busy with people. There were vendors all along the streets, little kids riding tricylces in front of the stadium, people playing basketball right outside. It was a happening place. Unlike in US baseball stadiums where you aren’t allowed to bring food into stadiums, in Korea it’s totally acceptable so we bought some fried chicken from a lady off the street and headed in. Baseball food, and sports food in general in Korea, is mainly Chimek (Chicken and beer) so the vendor was so confused when we didn’t buy any beer from her, lol. When we got into the stadium we thought we were prepared with our chicken, but we had nothing compared to the spread of fellow fans. People were bringing in coolers and coolers worth of food for their families and had everything from a full pizza and full 6 pack of beer to juice boxes and boxes piled high of fried chicken.

            The stadium was relatively empty the whole night but we had a blast. They had this guy who stood on the dugout with some dancers and sang chants the whole time. Each chant/song had a different arm movement and dance to go along with it that the fans knew. It was also interesting because so many of the songs played were American songs but had the lyrics changed to be in Korean. In the 7^th inning they pass out orange trash bags but instead of using them for trash people fill them with air and tie them on their heads. It was the weirdest thing but I guess since the Lotte giants’ color is orange people wanted to show their team pride.

            After the game we took the long metro ride to see the Gwangalli Bridge located by Gwangalli beach. The bridge was a feature point in one of the Korean dramas I watched, Haundae Lovers, and I was so excited to see it. It was gorgeous! It is all lit up and it changes color at night (as do most bridges in Korea-Koreans love neon bridges). As we were walking along the bridge and beach we spotted a carousel and wandered over to find a mini-fair. Most of the rides were really expensive but there were these huge robotic dogs you could sit on and for about a dollar they would walk and you could drive them around. Since it was cheap we decided to go for it, so there I am driving this huge robotic dog around the amusement park at ten ‘o’clock at night , right next to a four year old driving his dog.  What a night!

            The following day we got up early and decided to go see the UN Memorial. After a breakfast of just coffee (Korean don’t do breakfast right!) we spent forever getting lost and wandering in circles before we found the UN Memorial. The memorial honored all the men and women who died from various countries during the Korean war. It was weird though because there were armed guards at the entrance to the memorial and before letting us enter asked us where we were from. I couldn’t figure out why they would ask, maybe for data collection?? The memorial was beautiful and the weather was fantastic so it was a great day for walking around.

            Thanks to the help of some nice taxi drivers we found the bus stop to take us back to the Busan station so we could board the “hop on-hop off” tour bus to take us around the city. However, we waited for like 1 ½ before finally getting on the bus that took us throughout the city and towards Taejongdae Resort. Along the way the bus made various stops but we didn’t get off until the 75 Square which is basically a pavilion on Jeoryeongdo Island. I am so glad we got off as we got to hike around the island a little from here and there were beautiful views of the city and ocean. We hopped back on the bus and made our way to Taejongdae Resort Park which is basically a nature conservatory that is famous for its rock beach. Once we got to the gate we purchased tickets to get on this long tram that took us around the park/island. It was beautiful with amazing views out to the ocean. The only time we got off the tram was at the lighthouse where we were able to see most of the islands out to shore including Japan’s Tsushima Island. After taking in the sights we hopped back on the tram hoping to get off at the next stop for the palace but before we knew it, we had missed the stop and ended up back at the park entrance, oh well!

            Hopped back on the bus but as it was nearing the end of the day the bus was so packed and we were crammed into the stairwell not really allowing us to see much of the city.  I wish I could have seen more because we passed Songo Beach which has a bunch of really cool statues coming up from the sand.

            Our last stop was BIFF square which was the Busan International Film Festival Square. Instead of looking at the BIFF square we went to the Jagalchi Fish Market which was the coolest market I have seen in Korea yet. There were the weirdest looking fish in so many tanks, with me not being able to recognize half of what the fish and weird looking things were. I saw vendors filleting different fish, one guy throwin a fish on the flow and hitting it with a pole, I saw sea cucumbers just floating in little trays, it was crazy and so enjoyable. Out on the patio the sun was setting behind the mountains and there was some concert going on. As we were taking pictures we heard commotion over by the concert and apparently someone had thrown one of the plastic chairs into the water causing others to pounce on the perpetrator, grabbing him and yelling in Korean. Everyone was staring but I don’t think anyone knew what exactly was going on. I think that people just had a little bit too much Soju (Korean rice liquor).

            Once we had our fair share of fish and concert fighting we wandered over to BIFF square. Busan is known for the film festival that happens there every year (that was going on during our stay) and so BIFF was really crowded. Basically it is an area with a bunch of movie theaters where people can go watch screenings of movies. But it was hard to tell what was the actual BIFF square because its located in a bunch of streets and blocks of restaurants and stores so we just wandered around all the stores and restaurants before finally deciding on a restaurant for dinner. Although the restaurant looked delicious as we walked in, I just felt the gaze shift to me and Abby. I am use to people staring but it doesn’t mean I like it. The staff weren’t that friendly either but dinner was awesome-some kind of stir-fry.

            Once we had enough of the staring, we got some bubble tea and tried to head towards Busan tower to see the city at night. We were wandering in circles and circles looking for this stupid tower asking multiple people who had no idea. Well we finally saw it and couldn’t believe that people said they didn’t know where it was-It’s a huge tower in the middle of the city! I felt like in the movie, “Rat Race” where the two dumb brothers are looking for the airport when an airplane takes off right behind them. Anyways, we finally saw the tower and decided to walk towards it anyway we could. We ended up walking through some sketchy stairwells and poorly lit alleys but finally found it. The view from the top was awesome and allowed us to see the entire city and ocean beneath us filled with bustling people, bright neon lights and streets that went on forever. It was a great end to our day!

            Our last full day was going to comprise of going to the International Film Festival to see what all the commotion was about. We headed down towards Haundae Beach and wandered upon a traditional porridge restaurant. There was only one lady working there but she was so nice and sweet. It took forever for our porridge to come out and then she had made the wrong one for Abby so our short breakfast stop turned into a long, long meal. But she was so nice! We asked her where the Busan Aquarium was and instead of pointing on the map she had her husband bring the small delivery truck around and he drove us to the aquarium! It was so sweet and a great example of the Korean generosity!

            We spent a couple of hours wandering around the Korean aquarium seeing a bunch of cool animals and the shark show, as well as going on this weird 4D ride (so not worth it). I liked the aquarium but it was a prime example of how Koreans love to boast about Korea. On one wall they were talking about eating sharks and it said multiple times how China and Japan eat shark but Korea has condemned the practice and no one in Korea eats it, yeah right! Korean news and propaganda is so biased!!

            The aquarium is right on the beach so we finished up with the aquarium but when we went out we saw that the film festival had set up all these stages on the beach where actors and directors were being interviewed about their films. We saw some Korean actors but I have no idea how famous they were. I wasn't really that interested in them but was more interested in Haundae Beach, one of the most popular beaches in all of Korea. During the summer the beach is packed with people but seeing as how it was October it was fairly empty allowing me to take some nice pictures. Plus it was featured on my kdrama so I was excited!

            Since Haundae Beach is relatively close to the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) grounds and it is full of hotels, there were a lot of BIFF staff around who were able to help us get on a bus to the theatres. I am still not sure if they realized that we were just tourists and not actually a part of BIFF because everyone else on the bus had special ID tags and looked pretty important but, hey, free ride. I had no idea what an international film festival really was but I think it’s where they just show a bunch of movies and have a lot of meet & greets with directors and actors. The list of movies playing was a mile long and we had no idea how to pick or what to pick. When we walked up to the counter they said only one movie had tickets left and when we were discussing if we should see it, the clerk told us they were all sold out! How disappointing! Instead we walked over to the Shinsegae Centum City Department Store which is apparently registered as the largest shopping complex in the world. It was pretty big. But on the outside they were selling movie tickets so we tried our luck and got tickets for the last movie available even though it wasn’t being shown til much later in the evening. So we wasted some time looking around (the stores were way too expensive to buy anything but they did have an Under Armour store), eating lunch by the indoor ice rink, taking a walk outside by the river and walking around the BIFF grounds. Finally it was time to see the movie. Oh my god, it was terrible. It was called The One-Armed Swordsman and was made in the 1970s in that terrible, Chinese martial arts movie way with horrible fight scenes and a ridiculous amount of fake blood. It felt like the longest two hours of my life. It was interesting though because it was in Chinese but they had English, Korean and Japanese subtitles. After the movie they had a Q&A with the director which we stayed for before realizing it was all in Chinese translated into Korean.

            For our last hoorah for the day we went out for Chimek which is fried chicken and beer which was delicious but, boy did we feel sick after.

            The next day all we had on the agenda was to head to Busan Station and take the four hour train ride back to Jochiwon. Nothing that special happened but since we got home early enough I was still able to go for a run and do some BodyPump in my apartment to help a little with all the food I ate.

            Overall, Busan was nice but I was not overly impressed by the city. Although it is right on the water, there are cranes and construction crews working right on the water destroying the beautiful landscape. I wasn’t really a fan and don’t see the need to return to the city nor do I recommend going. But still very glad that I got to see the city!!