Brits abroad in Busan

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Jules’ dramatic entrance

I can’t explain how excited I was when one of my best friends in the world Jules told me that on her way home from travelling in South East Asia she was taking a two week detour to South Korea. I was also ecstatic that my other very good friend (and ginger brother from another mother) Rowan just happened to be on a month long holiday in Japan at the same time too! We coordinated all of our diaries and arranged to meet up in South Korea. Exciting times.

Jules arrived in to Seoul in dramatic style and realised she couldn’t get money out of the ATM which meant I spent the evening in sporadic Skype contact fretting about her. Luckily she sorted her problems and got to her destination. She arrived in Daegu the next day, however in true Nat and Jules style our arranged meet up didn’t quite go to plan. I waited at Dongdaegu train station for ages before wondering if Jules had got off at the wrong one (there are two in Daegu) but Jules had no phone so all I could do was hang around and wait. Almost an hour later an extremely tanned but stressed out looking Jules came running through the station! It was such a relief to see her and the drama be over. We spent the rest of the evening cooking our own spicy pork and drinking beer at a tasty Korean bbq restaurant near my house. The next day we were going to Busan but not until I had finished school and done my open class for pupils parents eep!

Cursed Friday

I don’t think I’ve ever had such a run of bad luck in one day. I woke up earlier than usual to get prepared for my class as some parents would be dropping in to watch it. I got out of the shower and somehow managed to jam the door against my foot and scrap off an enormous chunk from the back of my heel. My heel then started pouring with blood whilst I hopped around the room. When I say blood I mean a lot of blood and I didn’t even have a little plaster to hand. Panicked, I called Ash and being the champion he is he ran from his house (maybe 2k away) with his first aid kit to mine to help me and also lend me a memory card as I couldn’t find my USB drive with my class presentation (it was in school safe in my desk drawer – typical). As he ran home he fell and cut his hand and as Jules took on smoothy making duties she cut her finger peeling a kiwi fruit. It was the morning of blood shed. I also managed to lose the memory card in the chaos of the morning and left my netbook on top of the shoe rack at school (someone kept it safe until I noticed TWO HOURS later). To round it off I got lost in a taxi for ages on the way to visit another teacher’s class later in the day! What a Friday! Luckily the parents class seemed to go fine and I could look forward to a long weekend in Busan

Busan Baby here we come!

We caught the KTX (super fast train) to Busan and I impressed Jules with my hanguel reading whilst im sure all of the Koreans on the train thought that I sounded like a child in nursery learning to read.

We met Rowan and his big pull along suitcase at Busan Station and got a taxi to our hostel to drop of our stuff. We realised after driving for about 30 minutes that our hostel was a little away from the main tourist areas, we were literally at the end of one of the bus routes. The hostel was in a huge apartment block and was really nice. After spending forever trying to catch buses and taxi’s some random man finally flagged one down for us. We asked to be dropped off in Seomyeon, an area which has lots of restaurants, bars and market stalls in the street. Due to travelling to and from our hostel we didn’t eat until 11pm and then spent the next few hours visiting different bars, watching Rowan trying to win teddies on the crane machine and meeting up with Joshua from our teaching induction to play beer pong. We got home just as the sun was rising and saw the AMAZING view from our hostel, we were right next to the ocean and could see fishing boats bobbing on the waves as the sun came up. Definitely worth the taxi ride.

Sand sculptures, beaches, boat trips and jimjilbangs

With only 3 hours sleep and hangovers we roused ourselves, showered and left our hostel. We were only booked in there for one night and were technically homeless on the Saturday but were going to find a jimjilbang. A jimjilbang is like a public bath house where you can sleep. The baths are separated by gender and you get given pyjamas to sleep and sleep on mats on the heated floors in special communal rooms, but more about that later! We ate a weird but satisfying sausage in pastry (definitely not a sausage roll though!) and headed to Haeundae beach, the most famous in Busan. It was scorchio! We walked up and down the promenade and watched people making huge sand sculptures in preparation for a festival the following weekend. Next stop was lunch on the market street behind the beach. For the equivalent of about £4 we each had a bowl of gorgeous, really rich tasting soup with tofu and seafood and rice, not to mention lots of different side dishes to share including mackerel, spring onion pancake rice and a couple of bottles of macheolli (rice wine). It was delicious and the women working in there were really friendly and took a shining to Rowan and his crab impression. After lunch we decided to go on a boat trip along the coast by Haeundae beach. We sat on the roof of the boat and Rowan and Ash were offered dried fish and soju (Korean national alcoholic drink – tastes like vodka) from a group of Korean men. The Busan coastline is really impressive, the weather was gorgeous that day and the sea was really calm and glistening. Along the coastline there are huge striking sky scrapers and we also got a great view of Gwangalli Bridge. The boat took us out around some islands in sight of the coast and it was on the way there we realised just how far our hostel had been as we saw it on the coast.

We met Rowan’s friend Jounyoung Park (JP) when we got off the boat and started a night of socialising and beer in Haeundae. As we had nowhere to stay we had all put our things in lockers at the subway so had to get changed in the toilets and pick up whatever we would need overnight. We met up with Joshua again and stayed out really late.

Because it was a long weekend (and one of the busiest of the year) Ash and I had been unable to book anywhere to stay on the Saturday night so were planning on visiting a well known Jimjilbang called Vesta which was near to Haeundae beach. We didn’t realise that because it’s really popular arriving in the early hours of the morning wouldn’t work and it was fully booked! The taxi drove us around whilst JP our guardian angel tried to find a different Jimjilbang. In the end we found one and paid 10,000 (£5) to stay over. Jules and I received comfy pink tshirt and shorts and the boys had orange. We were so tired all we wanted to do right then was sleep. After a few disagreements on sleeping area between Jules and I we finally slept in a big room. We didn’t even have mats or pillows at that point because we’d missed them in the corner of the room so we just huddled on the heated ondol flooring and snoozed. I woke up a couple of hours later and some young dude had wedged himself between us for a cuddle! I yanked Jules away and told him to move before popping to the loo. When I got back from the toilet the same guy (very young) was cuddling Jules! I yanked her away and told him to do one, thinking he was being weird. The thing is the room was so dark he could have thought he knew her haha. Anyway Rowan, Ash and JP were close by so I don’t think anything bad could have happened. Oh I almost forgot to mention, whilst the rest of us went to bed as soon as we got there, Ash decided to use the baths and fell asleep in one before being woken up by JP and an old Korean man ha. He was kicked out of the bathing area and told off. What is he loike!

Jules and I plucked up our courage to go to the bathing room the next day. In jimjilbangs there are usually bathing rooms with large communal baths containing different temperatures of water. Everyone is completely naked but it’s separated by gender. In typical British style we were a bit worried about being in the buff but it was actually okay and relaxing. The bathing area was mostly full of old ladies bathing, having full body scrubs or showering. In our rush to get in we forgot to go in the shower first so had about 5 ajummas shouting ‘SHOWER!’ haha. So much for an inconspicuous entrance.

Shattered Sunday

Sunday day was a bit of a write off due to lack of sleep and bad hangovers, we just headed to our hotel for the evening. We paid over the odds for four of us to stay there and when we arrived realised we were all meant to stay in one room with a double bed! Anyway Jules snoozed whilst the rest of us went for Shabu Shabu down the road (I’m going to do a food blog entry soon so I’ll tell all about that then). Later in the day we said bye to JP who was off to meet some friends and went for a wander around Jagalchi fish market and Nampo-Dong.

Jagalchi fish market is a huge indoor fish market surrounded my outdoor market streets and is a great way to see traditional Korean life and also lots of different and strange marine life. Probably not the best place to go in flip flops with a hangover but oh well. We saw fish of all shapes and sizes and some things which I can’t even begin to describe, it’s a really vibrant place to visit and I’d recommend it to anyone.

After this we went for a walk in Nampo Dong international market and up a hill to an observation tower where we got quite a nice view of Busan and the sea. We were all pretty tired so had dinner and got the subway back. Before going back to the hotel we found a street stall selling cocktails so finished off the day with a White Russian each.

Happy Birthday Buddha!

Rowan had to go back to Japan on Monday and I was sad to see him go L. Monday 28^th May was the day Korean people celebrate Buddha’s birthday so we definitely wanted some of the action.

I’d read about a nice temple called Beomosa which was having birthday celebrations so we got the subway and bus there. It was absolutely packed but had a nice atmosphere as we walked up a hill towards the temple. To celebrate Buddha’s birthday there were hundreds of brightly coloured lanterns hung all over the area, it was beautiful. There was traditional Korean music and we got to thread our own prayer bead bracelets and make Lotus flower decorations from crepe paper. We even got a free Bibimbab lunch (mixed rice with veg and egg) which was scrummy. We stayed for a couple of hours and then faced the fact that we needed to get back to Daegu. We managed to fit loads in to the our three day holiday and had a super time!

Until next time...

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