Advertisement
Busan Station
Crazy awesome This weekend, I went to Busan with my friends, Jessica and Mai. The first place we went was a market across the street. The market had some Russian restaurants in it (the only ones I've ever seen in Korea), in between the streets lined with fresh (and stinky) fish and vegetables being sold on nondescript crates out in the open.
After we could no longer stand the smell, we headed to the subway station, which has an underground shopping area that goes on for miles. We passed by hundreds of new, sparkly shoes, dvds, clothes, perfume and accessory stores on our way to catch a subway to Beomosa temple.
We got off at the nineteenth stop on the line 1 subway, and caught a bus the rest of the way. It dropped us off near the temple, which seemed to be pretty deserted. I read online that this temple is usually bustling with tourists on the weekends, so I found that a bit strange. We walked around, trying to find the actual temple (we had been dropped off in the middle of a road with signs and maps in only Korean). We found a nature trail and walked down
Wisteria
In the wild... sort of that for a while, hoping it would lead to a temple. It didn't, so we cut our losses after about 20 minutes of walking through the forest filled with Wisteria and bamboo plants.
We finally found some traditional-looking temples and even a pagoda. The streets were all lined with paper lanterns, to celebrate Buddha's birthday, I believe. We walked around the temples, taking pictures and whatnot. When it got dark, the lanterns all lit up! It was really pretty. Still no clue where all the tourists went lol
It was time for dinner, so we headed back to the train station to get our tickets in advance. I quickly found there were no more trains going back to where I live in YeongCheon, so I bought a ticket to DaeGu and hoped I'd be able to catch the last bus from there to get home.
For dinner, we decided to try out "Eatery Alley" in a market supposedly known for its foreign food. It was more difficult than we anticipated to find this Alley, and when we did, it appeared to be regular Korean street food. We kept walking and found an Italian place and had some
Pretty Lanterns
And a statue of Buddha with a spear (never saw that one before!) delicious pasta, though, so there was a silver lining. We were all hoping for TexMex, I think :-p
Long story short, I caught that train to Daegu and realized I had missed the last bus. My only options were to find a hotel or take an hour-long taxi ride home. I opted for the taxi ride, since I didn't want to end up in a sketchy motel lol
The same man who told me the bus station was closed offered me a taxi ride to YeongCheon for about $30. This seemed reasonable, so I went with him to his cab, where there was a woman passed out in the front seat. I was more than a little sketched out, but the driver communicated to me in his best English and using hand gestures that this cab was already going to YeongCheon. I was about to walk away, but then the driver and another man blocked my pathway from the cab (I was standing next to the back door, which was open behind me). They started talking in Korean and pushed me into the cab!!!
Then, the other guy got in to the cab in the middle seat,
Statue
No clue how to describe this dragon-dog thing and yet another man got in on the other side of him. I tried to open my door, but it was locked from inside. I noticed the other two men looked drunk and tired, and then the cab took off before I even got a word in. Then, the radio started playing that song from Silence of the Lambs.. you know, the song Buffalo Bill dances to... "Goodbye Horses." At this point, I was trying to calm myself down and not think about waking up in a tub of ice with no kidneys or worse. This was my situation, and I had to think of a way to change it or go with it.
I decided to go with it, and just make sure the cab was following all the right signs to YeongCheon on the highway. I gave the man next to me a look that said, "I will break any part of you that touches me," and he folded his arms against his chest and inched away from me. That was a relief, at least. When we got to YeongCheon, the cab driver dropped me off at the train station, but I didn't have enough cash so
Lanterns with...
wishes? These lanterns had rectangular pieces of paper attached to them with Korean letters written on the left and Chinese characters on the right. I wish I knew what they were for. I like to think they are wishes. lol he took me to the nearest atm he could find, which was by the bus station, and luckily, much closer to my apartment than the train station (there were no cabs there this late at night).
It would have upset me that he didn't take me directly to my apartment, but I didn't see any reason he needed to know where I lived, so I was okay with it. I walked home (maybe a ten minute walk?), and crashed, happy I had somehow made it back to YeongCheon with my kidneys intact.
That's all for now. I spent the rest of my weekend preparing for my classes this week. Thanks to everyone who reads my blogs!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.16s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.1187s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb