sEouL

My roomies and I went to Busan for our three day weekend. We stayed three nights and two days. We took the express bus (21000 won) at 9pm thursday night and didn't get back til sunday afternoon. It was a 4.5 hour ride with one 15 minute restroom break. It was a good deal!

The weekend was beautiful down in Busan. There was a definate difference in the language, looks and attitude of the Busan people. The words were short, chopping and sounded like Japanese. I felt that the people were a lot shorter as well. The girls had a more flater and rounder face. I definately like the attitude down in Busan better. People seemed happy and they tend to do things on a slower pace. There were only three subway line, in which you can almost get to any place. The subways are cleaner, by the way.

Here's a recap of the things we did in Busan:

Thursday, 11/24: Left 9pm and arrived at a random bus stop in Busan (no idea of the district) at 1:30am. Taxis were lined up. I didn't even have time to think when a taxi driver came up to me and grabbed my luggage. We reserved a hostel (Artists and tourists hostel) back in Seoul. We had a hard time communicating with the taxi driver because he didn't know where the address was (note- you must know what is around your distination because the hotels, houses, etc. aren't exactly numbered). We ended up being dropped by the subway station where our hostel was by. We found our hostel....but guess what? It was closed...there was absolutely no life. Plus, it was located by this really really creepy church. I felt that I was living a scary movie. We were also in a rough neighborhood- Namcheon. So we grabbed a taxi and told him to take us to a hotel. Well, you would expect that the taxi would assummed that we wanted a good hotel...but nope- he took us to "love hotels". We didn't realize what the hotels were until we saw call girl cards and plus a really disturbing maching with lots of * things in it....wow. Well anyways, we started to walk away really fast, and happened to grab another taxi. This time we got lucky, and the driver dropped us by the Grand Hotel in Haeundae. We spent the first night there- it was about $50/person...but it was worth it- to be safe and to have a fantastic view of the ocean. The next day, we moved to a hotel right behind the Grand Hotel called the Golden Beach Hotel- which cost about $180/person for two nights. At first we thought that it was $90/person for two nights but we were informed the next day that there was a mistake. Ah well.

Friday, 11/21: We woke up at 10am- went walking around, shopped at HomeEver (which was nicer than the one in Seoul). We stopped by Haeundae Beach0- absoluately gorgeous. We had lunch at a yummy seafood place (but we ended up getting Kalbi)...Their kimchi was delicious. Next, we enjoyed desert at Hagan Daaz...So we visited two markets- Seomyam No. 1 Street, and a seafood market by the area. Next, we shopped at Pusan university- which was exactly a version of Sinchon and Ewda area. After, we visited Gwangali Beach along with the bridge. The bridge had a multitude of colorful lights and the beach had lots of shells in comparison to the Haeundae Beach.

Saturday, 11/22: We woke up at 10am, ate at the Bulgogie Brothers (very upscale and yummy food where I got a noodle seafood dish) and visited the Busan Aquarium, which was 10x more better than the Mall America Under the Sea aquarium. They had all aquatic animals not only the ones with fins. There were penguins and otters! We were planning to take the Tiffiny Cruise for a dinner tour but unfortunately the seats were full. So, me and one of my roomies decided to visit the Jewelry Specialized Shopping Street (which was a dissappointment because it was indoor and expensive...more like gold, silver, etc as opposed to little shops set outside). Anyways, we looked around the area and saw another seafood place. Next, we went down to Texas street, which was supposed to be like Itaewon. Here, we saw lots of foreigners- they were kinda looking at us wierd too. I was like- you're a foreigner too! It wasn't as big as I expected it too be. We went down to another district and here we shopped underground. This was a first experience because we haven't shopped underground in Seoul yet. They had super cool stuff and they were pretty cheap. Anyways, we had our last meal at a seafood buffet, which I ate delicious crab legs.

Sunday, 11/23: We woke up at 6am to catch the 8:30am bus back to Seoul. We took the taxi down to Busan station and found out that the bus system was located at the very end of line 2 (green line). My roommie and I had an aweful breakfast at a restaurant at the bus station. We arrived at about 1pmish. It's good to be home to Seoul and to my own bed!

It's amazing how time flies by. There's four more weeks left til I go home. It's really a serendipity feeling- a feeling of wanting to go home yet wanting to stay. There's so many things going on at home that I'm missing...the little funny cute things that my nephews and neices do and say- oh, how they've grown!

It's taken me about three months to figure out that I can use a locker here at school. Well, it's not really my fault though. No one says anything here. The office assistent for CIEE has a locker that she offered for me to use. Boy, I was about to drop down on my knees and cry- really, it's been that bad (at least on tuesdays and thursdays) when I have to get to class in less then 10 minutes, while climbing and running down hills and hiking up super steep stairs. My load has lessen : ).