Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Another Great Weekend in South Korea

Just like anyone living anywhere, we look forward to the weekend.  This past weekend we had a great time (again) in Busan.  It is quickly becoming one of our favorite cities.  We arrived Saturday morning after our usual bus ride.


For starters, the bus ride was notable because it was the first time we got on the bus without making sure that it was going to Busan with the driver.  Now this may not sound like much, but to me it meant that I was confident that I read the city name on the bus correctly and purchased the correct ticket.  I guess it meant to me that I no longer had to be scared of riding the bus to the wrong place.

We arrived in Busan and then got on the subway.  Busan's metro system is pretty easy to understand and in no time we were at Oncheonjang station to meet a big group of other foreigners waiting to meet us.  We headed up to a great hike.  A cable car took us up the mountain and we were able to go exploring from there.  After some hiking we came to an old temple with some great carvings in the stone walls and peaceful rooms.  The walls and steps appeared to be very old and a friend and I joked about expecting to see Indiana Jones come flying through the air using his whip.







The hike was uphill the whole way back to the cable car, but we knew that good food always follows a good hike.  Tom took us to The Wolfhound, a place in Busan famous for its British style pub and food.  The fish and chips were amazing after such a long morning.  We also split some chili cheese french fries which reminded us of home.

We went back to Tom's place to relax for while before meeting up with some other friends later.  We stopped into a place called Long Island Iced Teas (you can guess what they sell there) for a drink on the way.  We had been sitting down for a few minutes and all of a sudden the servers, bar tenders, and customers all lit up sparklers and started dancing.  It was the kind of spontaneous craziness that makes this country exciting.  After this, the bartenders spent about 20 minutes having a bottle juggling contest, similar to Tom Cruise in the movie Cocktail.  I had never seen anyone doing moves like they were.

After this we met some friends and went to the Vinyl Underground for a punk rock concert.  3 Korean punk bands played sets and rocked the house.  It was great to see so many young people really jamming to rock and roll and having a good time.  Some even had on clothes similar to the punk styles found in western culture.  It was strange to see this because so often Koreans are dressed and act conservatively.  Also, the majority of music you hear anywhere here is K-Pop, which is very um, poppy, happy, fast, and full of love lyrics.  It was great to see young people out expressing themselves through rock and roll!



It was a late night, for sure.  But it was so worth it!  We grabbed a few kebabs at the Turkish street food cart and then headed back to Tom's for some much needed sleep.  The next day we went to BreezeBurns for a huge brunch.  Eggs, toast, sausage, bacon, waffle, fruit, orange juice, and coffee all in one slam.  It was amazing and just what I needed.  We love to eat all the western style food we can when we go to a big city because our city really doesn't offer any of this kind of great food.

We jumped on the subway and rode to the soccer stadium to watch a Busan I-Park soccer match.  For only 5,000 won (about $5) we were able to watch a professional K-League match!  We found some seats in the sun and relaxed while they played to an exciting 3-3 draw.  It was my first time watching pro soccer, and I'm ready to go back.



After the game it was time to head back to Jinyeong.  We grabbed one last western meal, McDonald's quarter pounders, and got on the bus for home.  It was a huge weekend but it was just what we needed.  We are really lucky that we have such great friends in Busan who love to show us around when we come to visit!

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