All Play, No Work – Part 1- Busan

So before I have to get down to work, I am on vacation! I spent 3 days at Daejeon SLP (Sogang Language Program) Institute, observing the class I am taking over and spent Saturday hanging out with Heather and Katlyn (visiting from Cheongju, where 3 of the 6 Redeemer grads are living) and going on a much anticipated Costco shopping spree. Then Kristin, Anna and I left on Sunday to spend three and a half days in Busan, a beach city on the East Sea.

When we arrived, we did what Busan intends its visitors to do and enjoyed one of its many beaches. At first we thought the Koreans were silly for hiding under their umbrellas on the beach, but quickly realized what a blessed respite they are from the heat when there are no trees in sight to shade you from the scorching sun. Did I mention that it is blazing hot here? And HUMID- as in, your clothes don’t dry, your sweat doesn’t evaporate, when you breathe through your mouth it feels as though you’re breathing in the steam from the bowl of soup in front of you, except when you look down, there’s no bowl of soup because who in their right mind would eat soup when it’s this hot?

Kristin, Anna and I at Gwangalli Beach in the evening

Our second day in Busan, we went hiking. Yes, hiking, because it was supposed to be cloudy that day (naturally we concluded that cloudy= cooler) and our hostel was air conditioned, so we thought it was great weather for hiking. Let me just say a little something here about living with AC- yes, another digression. I have never lived in a place with air conditioning, and my apartment here has AC. Living with AC is living a lie- a beautiful lie, but a lie nonetheless- and we all know that lies always turn out badly. In the mornings I get up and think, “It’s not so bad that I only have dress pants to wear to work, it’s not so hot”. Then I go outside, the truth is revealed, and people get hurt- namely me. Back to hiking the mountain. We had been decieved in part by AC, and so were committed to our decision. It wasn’t so bad, the bus took us most of the way up the mountain, we were walking up only a small incline, there was some shade, and we took our time.

South Gate of Geumjeongsanseong Fortress. The fortress was originally built in 1703 to protect Korea against attacks from the sea by the Japanese and Chinese.

One view from Watchtower 2. You may notice a white haze in many of my photos, thanks to the thick humidity. Regardless, this photo doesn't do the mountains justice.

Then we decided we HAD TO find Watchtower 1, because it had a great view of the city. So we followed our friendly guide who offered to show us the way. He didn’t tell us the way was half an hour straight uphill. But it was worth it, the view was amazing.

Proud of our accomplishment and survival. Also, sweaty and looking disgusting. I'm glad you can't zoom in on this photo.

Our guide and the view of the Busan. Is it poor judgement that we followed a complete stranger up a nearly deserted mountain, and then an hour later, followed another couple of strangers through the back alleys of Busan?

The happy ending to this story was that we took a cable car back down the mountain. Then, later that evening, we rewarded ourselves with another spectacular bird’s eye view of a different part of the city- courtesy of Busan Tower and its air conditioned elevator.

Beautiful view of the evening sky over Busan and the East Sea.

Our final day in Busan we spent relaxing at the main beach – Haeundae Beach. It is insane.

Trying to give you an idea of how insane it was. . .row upon row of umbrellas that were lined up edge to edge and the sea swarming with Koreans and their yellow tubes.

I got to join in the Korean obssession with floating on yellow tubes, thanks to the kindness of our umbrella neighbours.

Then we went to the Busan Aquarium. Some of the interesting things there were a "Fish Car" which was literally a car being used as an aquarium, and an underwater magic show, which we left because we had no idea what was going on- that tends to happen a lot over here, what with me knowing only four phrases in Korean.

Some of the cool and colourful sea creatures we saw along with some very strange and ugly creatures.

The day ended with me attending my very first baseball game ever – go Lotte Giants!! At times the crowd was more entertaining than the game. For instance, the 8th inning came around and they gave out these orange plastic shopping bags. So I thought everyone was meant to clean up their own garbage. But then people started waving them around, so I thought the bags were meant as cheap noise makers to go along with everyone's homemade newspaper pom-poms. Then the crowd proceeded to do this with the bags:

For the record, everyone did use the bags at the end of the game to clean up their garbage. I'm still not sure, however, what the primary purpose of the bags was- to wear or to collect garbage.

On Wednesday, we returned home to Daejeon where Robyn, who had just arrived in Cheongju a few days before, met up with us to head to Seoul on Thursday. Details of that adventure will be coming soon in All Play, No Work - Part 2!