It was a short week at work this week, as we only had to work Monday and Tuesday before our summer vacation started. My classes on Monday went smoothly, and were bumped to 40 minutes instead of 30, and then I spent Tuesday sitting around as usual.
After work Monday I took some time to get my laundry done so that I would have clothes to wear while on vacation, and so that I wouldn't have a hap of laundry to do once I got home. On Tuesday with my laundry finished, Emily stopped by to hang out while I packed and then we watched Zombieland, which was an awesome movie.
It was officially go time when my alarm went off Wednesday morning at 7am. I rolled out of bed, packed the last couple odds and ends that I needed and headed to the train station around 750. Unfortunately, I waited until I was leaving my house to call James and he had missed his alarm, so was just getting out of bed. This was not a good way to start, since the train was at 9am and he lives about 45 minutes away via the subway. He said he would d his best to get there, but it was going to be close. Once I got to the train station I met up with Blake and Nate, got our tickets and had some McDonald's breakfast while we waited for James. The train started boarding at 845 and James was still a couple subway stops away, and we were worried he wasn't going to make it.....but then with only 4 minutes to departure, James rounded the corner and sailed down the escalator. He made it!
The three hour ride to Busan went by pretty quick, as I slept most of the way. Once we arrived in Busan we mt up with JungHun at the stations (he decided to tag along at the last minute) and headed off to our minbak at Song Jeong beach. It was a bit overcast and rainy when we arrived so we took some time to grab some fried chicken and beer and have lunch in our room while we waited to see if it would clear. Luckily it did and we went out to the beach to toss the football around, but stayed out of the water because the Koreans are insanely cautious about the water when it is wavy, and would not let us go in. And on a side note, even when the weather was fine or the rest of our vacation, swimmers are not allowed in the water past their chests which i only about 100 feet out in the water. The lifeguards blame the 'undertow' from the waves, but it was seriously annoying not being able to actually swim at the beach. Eventually it started to rain again, so we went back to our room, watched a movie, and then got ready and went to Gwanggali for dinner and drinks.After our dinner, we hit a couple different bars before heading back to our area for one more beer, some kimbap, and then bed.
Waking up Thursday to blue skies and a warm sun, we all wanted to hit the beach for our first full day of vacation. We decided to go to Haeundae beach, because it is the most popular and largest beach in Busan; and that's when we realized how crazy going to the beach in Busan really is. I can sum it up in two words "Parasol City". The beach from Thursday through Sunday, given that it is peak season, is nothing but a sea of beach umbrellas, set up in grid formation, from end to end, waters edge to sidewalk. It left no room for any beach activities like tossing the football or building sand castles, and given that you pretty much have to get an umbrella, it was hard to get any sun unless you were at an edge and sitting in the walk ways. Nonetheless, we had a good Thursday, and managed to get some sun and football time in once people started leaving and we could take down some umbrellas. Also, we made a few friends throughout the day. One was a girl named Kensie (sp?), a douche kyopo named Steve, and two Korean girls whose names I never got but who we ended up drinking with later. We left the beach and went back to Song Jeong to get showered and out of our swim stuff, grabbed a burger from a place called Blowfish, which had won the latest burger competition, then headed back to Haeundae for another night out. We met up with the girls from earlier, and shockingly another girl named Ashlee that I went to University with. We had some drinks at a western style bar then headed to noraebang to finish off the night.
Then the drama began. Nate had been at a poker tournament, and had wanted Blake to get the Korean girls out so he could talk with them more, but he took so long to get there that Blake was already building a good rapport with one of them and Nate took that personally. He threw a bit of a tantrum and stormed off back to our area instead of noraebanging. We were fine with it and caught up with him a couple hours later, smashed on the beach, and tried to get him to relax and go to bed. It took a bit longer than we had hoped, and by the time we crashed, the sun was coming up.
I got up Friday at 1030 and wanted to get out an see something cultural, given Busan was a main naval hub during the Korean War. I checked out the map I had and decided the UN Memorial Cemetery was going to be my first stop. I took off to catch the bus to that side of town and quickly realized how hot it was going to be that day. I got to the cemetery a little after noon and spent a couple hours walking around and checking out the monuments donated by the countries involved, before heading back to the beach. I had wanted to see some more but given how hot it was, and that Blake and Nate were leaving Friday night, I wanted to get some more time in with them. Getting back to the beach around 4 I hung out with them briefly before they packed it in and headed home. Then shortly after that, James, JungHun, and I also packed it in for dinner. James and I decided to skip the cold awkward shower where we were staying, and instead hit up a jimjilbang (sauna) for a warm shower and a dip in the hot tub. Feeling refreshed the three of us went out for some galbi, then cruised back down the beach for a coke and some fireworks. Friday night we kept it quite chill, because James and I had big plans in the morning involving a certain 70's movie creature and scuba diving.
If you haven't guessed it, we were going to go scuba diving with sharks. Waking up at 930 Saturday morning, James JungHun, and I switched to a smaller room because Blake and Nate had left. Then James and I headed out to Haeundae at 1030 to make it to the Busan Aquarium by 11. We waited at the aquarium for everyone to show up and the went in with the instructor. There was a quick rules and regulations talk,followed by some diving instructions for those that were not certified divers. Since James and I were, it was a good time to just zone out. After everyone was up to speed on what was going to happen, we headed to the tank to get our gear on and get in the water. Once we were in the shallow warm up pool above the aquarium where the sharks are on display, again James and I just hung out while the others learned about their equipment. Eventually everyone was ready and we took the plunge into the main tank. It was really cool being in a tank with live sharks. There were Sand Tiger Sharks also called Nurse Sharks, Blacktip Reef Sharks, a Leopard Shark, a couple large Australian groupers, a Manta Ray (I think), and some other smaller fish. We got the the bottom of the tank and walked around looking at the sharks, and getting pretty close to them when they felt inclined to come check us out. We were under strict rules to not touch them, which was fine by me. It was also real cool to be on the inside of the tank while other aquarium goes watched in awe from the other side of the glass. On top of seeing the sharks, we were allowed to search for and keep the shark teeth from inside the tank. We stayed down for abut 25 minutes, then resurfaced and got out of the tank around 4. James and I stayed in our swim shorts and went straight outside o catch the last couple hours of sunlight before heading back to shower.
Once back in Song Jeong, we grabbed a shower at the jimjilbang then killed some beers in our room before dinner. Again we had galbi for dinner, then headed back to Haeundae because JungHun really wanted to go clubbing. We ended up meting with the same Korean girls from Thursday at a club playing house music, dancing our butts off until the sun was coming up. I'm not sure what time it was exactly, but we crashed in the day light and had to get up and out at noon. So without a whole lot of sleep we got up and packed up at exactly noon. Not wanting to carry our bags around, we decided it would be best to just chill on the beach until our train at 6. And that's what we did. James and I rented beach lounge chairs and sat around for he afternoon while JungHun went to meet up with some family. We left the beach a 5 so that we could make it to our train on time, but little did we know, everyone else was doing the same. We got stuck in traffic and almost missed our train. Making it with 2 minutes to spare, James and I never even picked up our tickets, we just ran down and jumped onto the train. This action created a new problem, we didn't know where our seats were. To fix this, we asked one of the train attendants to help. She was able to find us seats, but since we hadn't picked up our tickets, meaning I never signed the Visa receipt for them, we didn't actually have seats. Quickly we scrambled put together enough money to buy the seats she had found for us before the next station so that we didn't get kicked off. We had just enough, gave it to her, then settled in for the 3 hour ride back to Seoul. Once back it was straight home for a good shower and some sleep.
Another week well spent, hope yours was a good one too.
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