Busan - The Novel

Hello! Just got back from a great weekend in Busan, a coastal city about two hours away. We left Saturday morning, bright and early at 8:30, unfortunately the day was rainy and slightly chilly which dampened our plans for checking out the beaches and such but we made due with what we got.

We were meeting up with a Canadian couple, Dave and Erin, who we had met at our ski trip a few months back. By the time we met up with them and got sorted it was almost one o'clock and the first thing we did was headed to the Busan tower, which is pretty much the same as the CN tower. Due to the weather it was so foggy we actually couldn't see the top of the tower and nixed going to the top because it seemed rather pointless. After that we decided to be more organized than past trips and set out to find a place to sleep for the night, rather than wait until we were drunk and stumbling and willing to sleep anywhere. Tourist Information directed us to Arpina Hostel which was the nicest hostel I have ever stayed in. There was a wedding hall in it, a gym, a driving range, restaurants, bars, it was amazing! The pension rooms, (big, empty rooms full of blankets and pillows, slumber party style) were all booked up so we had to settle for two rooms with 3 single beds, but they were great, it was just like having a hotel room.

We stayed only long enough to drop our things and were on the move again, towards Haeundae Beach and the aquarium, fortunately the weather had begun to clear and it was actually quite nice for walking around outside. I wasn't all too excited about the aquarium, being that fish aren't the most exciting of animals, and even when I was in Australia the Sydney aquarium didn't seem all that great, but majority of the group was up for it so I went along with it. So glad I did because it was actually pretty amazing, they had so many different fish and I got some really cool pictures which I will post a little later.

One of the most exciting things about Busan was the fact that it has a casino! Trey and I were pumped for it! Everyone else indulged us but overall they were pretty indifferent to it. It was in the top of a hotel building and open to foreigners only so we headed up there around six o'clock and took a look around. This was far different from any casino I have ever seen. It was quiet, there were no noisy machines or crowds of people. There were about 10 gaming tables set up and maybe ten slot machines. Trey sat down to play some Black Jack and I was kicking myself for not having stopped at a cash machine being that there didn't seem to be one around. I had a bit of money on me but not enough to sit at a table, which was probably for the best. Tom and I sat at a slot machine and played around for a few minutes before conceding that the game was silly and we weren't going to win. We gave Trey the nod that we were going to meet the others and he stood up from the table to come with us, forty dollars up. Not bad for about fifteen minutes of play.

Afterwards we went in search of a bar for predinner drinks and walked around for about half an hour and each bar we went into was either dead or "a sexy lady bar". Finally we ended up back at the exact place we started off our search and went in for a pitcher of beer and made plans for the rest of the night. We decided on a Thai restaurant for dinner and the atmosphere of it was great. I debated back and forth between Pad Thai and Cashew Nut Chicken for a few minutes before decided on Pad Thai. Everyone's meal came and looked delicious, mine on the other hand was rather bland looking and quite disapointing in the taste area. It wasn't awful should we ever go back I will definetly go for something with a little more flavour. After dinner we decided to walk off some of our meal and headed back towards our hostel for a little regrouping, we'd been going steady now for about 14 hours and it was beginning to show on all of us. Our room came equipped with the BBC channel and we watched a few Brit shows. Just as it was starting to seem like we were all down for the night Dave and Erin asked if we were ready to get back out there (as was the original plan). As you may know, that's all it took to get our group back into gear and we were off once again to the downtown area in search of some ruckus.

Our first stop of the night was at a Wild West Bar and it was kind of amusing to see a Korean take of what a western bar is like; it was covered with pictures of Indians, cowboys, and signs like "Wide Bill" (instead of Wild Bill), reinforcing the notion that nobody can screw up an English sign quite like Koreans can. We stayed for one drink and then we were off again. The next bar we came across was The Beatles bar, complete with their pictures on the sign. We were sold! Unfortunately we got up the dark staircase and it was closed or no longer in business so we had to keep moving. Next we came across "Bar Diana," but it was a 'room' bar, which means it serves a purpose other than just drinking so we kept moving (but I got pictures!). Next we came to the "Kenny Rogers Noraebang" and the sign had Kenny's face splashed across it, which I also got pictures of. Had it been later or had we had more drinks in us we probably would have made it a noraebang night but it was a little too early for that. Finally we ended up in a bar on the ninth floor of a building which made for a great view. It was also one of the dirtiest bars I've been in in Korea, complete with a cockroach on the floor! But they had these one litre glasses that were about 3 feet tall and everyone wanted to get those. Well almost everyone, Richard and I, stuck to the normal sizes which was fortunate because everyone else had a tough time drinking out of such a tall, narrow glass. The rest of the night went as a usual night out, we hit up a few more spots and finally decided to head back to our hostel around 4:30, which was good because I was still fighting my cold and was exhausted! Upon getting back to the hostel everyone decided to go use the jjimjjabong except for me who dove into bed the second I was in the room. Finally around six o'clock everyone was in bed for the night (er.. morning).

Weather wasn't much better today but we still had some sights we wanted to see and we decided we were going to go up the tower regardless of the fog. I'm glad we did because when we got to it there were some festivities going on which involved a lot of music and artisitic dance which I got some good pictures of. The fog wasn't all that bad and we had a good view of the city, but the waterside view was pretty hazy. After eating, shopping and some more touring around we decided to head back to Daejeon. We said goodbye to Dave and Erin and grabbed our train tickets. So much activitiy definetly made our weekend fly by and I can't believe it's already time to head back to work tomorrow but it was so nice to get out Daejeon for a bit and see some more of Korea.

I will post some pictures later, which I'm sure you need if you've actually read all the way through this. Sorry it wasn't actually all that interesting but it was a change from my normal weekend recaps! Hope everyone had a good weekend!