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Gateway to Beomeosa
Beautiful Korean Temple Wow so it's been quite a vacation for these past few days. Thanks to Buddha and his much venerated birthday and thanks to my schools director having booked a flight to some far off destination, myself and my friends from Wonderland all got a four day weekend. This was much needed seeing as we have all been working overtime with both our end of month evaluations, monthly plans, and the upcoming 'observation class' where all the parents come and watch us teach.
So let me start from the beginning. Wednesday, on my way out of school I noticed that Pirates of the Caribbean III had just come out and immediately I had my first set plans for the evening. The movie was ok, I wasn't overly impressed but it was good enough. Afterward Jonny and I had some quick convenience store dinner sitting out back behind the family mart (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Mart). After these quick rations we met up with Michelle and were off to meet up with a bunch of other foreigners to celebrate our friend Matt's birthday. Rumor had it that there was a spring festival happening at the University downtown so we
Door at the Gateway
Strangely it is still inviting jumped in cabs and headed down. When we got there we were whisked off by a group of Matt's Korean friends and brought to a Japanese restaurant for food, cake, beer and soju. To be honest I am not exactly sure what happened with the festival but who cares it was a great time. I met some really great people that night and stumbled around downtown till late in the evening. Only downfall is both myself and my new friend MJ had both lost our phones at the Japanese bar so the day started off with her and I off on a mission to track down our lost hand-a-pone (Korea's word for cell phone). After many dead ends we got news that friends of ours had our phones so we returned to Chilgok, found our phones, and started drinking again. That night called it a bit early and watched a movie with M.J. It was nice
Friday rolls around and I find myself up and out of bed at 9 am full of energy. After little necessary housekeeping, I set off on my adventure to Busan. One hour long train ride later I was
Rock Pile
It's a buddhist thing... you wouldn't understand... haha in the middle of Korea's beach Mecca. I jumped a subway and was off to Nampo-dong Market to meet up with Jonny and Michelle. We spent the day perusing shops and dropping our jaws at the various cultural shocks one runs into only a daily basis when surrounded in a huge city. That night we went out for drinks with my friend Dan who I met in Japan. We got some dinner at a restaurant whose proprietor had a cartoon likeness of her adorned on the walls (the resemblance was uncanny - basically a Korean women, with a huge smile, big coke bottle glasses, and huge blonde frizzy hair). The restaurant specialized in serving tons of side dishes along side a giant plate of chopped ham. I love Korea. Haha.
So we stumbled for a while, buying beers on the street till we found this interesting little bar with comfy chairs. I say interesting because the ordering process was like nothing I'd ever seen before. You walk in and get seated, then you go to the beer freezers, pick out your drinks, bring them to the counter, pay for them, and then a waiter
Wicked Cool Face
At the temple in Beomeosa picks them up on a tray and follows you to the table. I am not sure of the logic behind it but TIK (this is Korea). Jonny and Michelle went home after this bar, but Dan and I trekked onward eventually landing at a place called Habana Live with a couple of foreigners we met on the street. Apparently this place was a foreigner bar, but it seemed as if we were the first group of white people they had ever seen. It was quite an interesting experience honestly.
After the bar, I was dizzy to say the least and it was around 4 am so I headed back to my hotel by the fish market. My hotel room was actually quite nice, room 302, at a place we feared might be a roach motel but turned out to be quite classy and very clean. I had my first experience sleeping on a Yo that night, which is basically a floor bed. I haven't slept that well in years. But once again I woke up quite early and much to my dismay Jonny and Michelle had yet to get out of bed. Here's to
Temple Museum
Well worth the won the strong genes and inheriting my mother's ability to wake up early despite anything that happens the night before. I think chronic life long sleep deprivation might be a Clark family trait.
After a bit of trouble getting breakfast at the GS store (the lady behind the counter seemed to have never seen a register before and had issue giving us change) we were off to Nopo-dong on the northern side of the city. Our destination was Beomeosa Temple in the mountains. The temple was still decorated from Buddha's birthday so it was really quite picturesque, check out the album below to see for yourself. The temple gets its name from a mythical golden fish that flew around a rainbow colored cloud.
We left the temple and I parted ways with Jonny and Michelle and headed to Haeundae beach. I didn't have much direction - Jonny told me say "O-dee-oh Aquar-ee-um" if I got lost. But I felt adventurous and I trusted my engrained instinct of finding a beach and sure enough I did just find. The aquarium and the beach were beautiful. Sorry for the ample pictures
of fish but I love aquariums and this one had some really cool exhibits including this long glass tunnel that runs through the shark tank. From there I hopped the subway, transferred a bunch of times and eventually found myself on the KTX train back to Daegu writing postcards and chatting with the family on the phone.
I got out of the taxi back in Chilgok and stopped by Beer Brown, a bar owned by one of my Korean friends. We chatted about the weekend and his fiancé made me some dinner. I really do love that place. I left from there, dropped my bags off at the house and jumped in the cab to meet Joe, Mike and Chris at a bar called Old Skool. The night was a little interesting; Mike had met two Korean girls at a bar and brought them along. They were… crazy to say the least but I wasn't really in the mood to deal with it. So I split out early and headed home.
Bringing me to today which has been spent cooking, reading and writing you this very long-winded story.
Busan Beach
It's still a bit cold, but the beach is crowded go figure... I hope you enjoy it! Sorry for the length. Anyway I hope things are well wherever you are! I hope to hear from you soon! Till then…
Much love,
Matt
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