Lunar New Year

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We jumped on Rosie (purple/pink scooter) and took a ice cold ride to Gumi Station 6:30 in the morning. 9:20 We arrived in Busan ready for the day just to realise it is raining. Our first stop was Gukje Market. There one can buy anything from pig heads to bad quality umbrellas from angry old men (ask us we know).
We jumped back on to the subway and headed for Gwangalli Beach. There we wanted to see the bridge they built over the bay. The Gwangan Bridge is the biggest bridge in Korea and is 7.42km long. It has 2 levels for driving, upper and lower.
Then it was time for the Busan Aquarium at Haeundae Beach. It is small but very interesting. They have penguins in a tank that swim up and down. We were lucky to witness the feeding of the Small Paw Otter. They were so cute and full of life the worker had a hard time keeping them satisfied while talking to the crowd (in Korean of course).
The big tank with the sharks was impressive and you can walk trough a 270 degrees tunnel with the moelgogi (fishes) swimming around you! The last tank we saw was a Hyundai car filled with water and some fish. Unfortunately one couldn't see very well, a car window wasn't made for these purposes...
Then it was time to locate our hostel for the night. The Guest House Busan is located in Yeonsan-dong. With the help of some people in a restaurant and in the street we located it. It was very cosy and so not what we expected but it had everything we needed and the bathrooms were clean. Unfortunately we had no underfloor heating in the room so it was a bit cold.
At 4:50 we got dressed and hit the road to the Haedong Younggungsa Temple next to the ocean. After taking 2 taxi's and 2 subway trains we arrived there at 6:30. The sun just started to rise but it was still pitch black, we scurried our way through the dark and found the temple on the rocks facing the East Sea (Sea of Japan). It was beautiful...!
We bought a candle and lit it at the buddha on the rocks. Because it was Lunar New Year people came to offer buddha and the sea rice and soju.
We walked back to the main road and took a taxi to Songjeong Beach. There you can see all the nets where the fisheries are breeding their fish.
We realised what time it was and had to move on and flagged down a taxi to take us to Jangsan Station. But he did not understand us and thought we wanted a taxi to another town for the price of 40 000W (R300). We couldn't understand him so we got out and started walking in the direction where we wanted to go while keeping an eye out for a taxi. We got to a big main road and there was the same taxi. When the taxi driver saw us he called us over. We tried explaining to him (again) where we wanted to go and finally he understood, he was angry with us pronouncing the words wrong! He almost took us to a city a few hours from Busan.
He gave us a lesson in Korean pronunciation on our way to the station. We couldn't stop laughing, it was very funny! The ride to the station only cost us 2000W (R14). From there we rushed to Busan station to take the KoRail train back to Gumi and Rosie. Home sweet home...

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