Anyong

Finally we landed in South Korea. But our travels were not over yet. We decided to immediately take a 5 hour train ride south to the city of Busan. That required about an hour subway ride from the airport to downtown Seoul. So again to recap the last 48 hours:

Subway, run to bus station, bus, train, bus, hike, bus, train, overnight bus, subway, train, airport lounge, plane, subway, train…now we are at our destination in Busan, South Korea. We arrived at about midnight and luckily our Motel was just a few blocks from the train station.

Busan is a really cool port town on the south-eastern coast of the country. We spent the first morning walking through endless markets by the shore. Dried fish markets, fresh fish markets. You name it. So many fish in these markets, I’m not sure why they still had boats in the water. We weren’t sure what they were going to do with this guy, but there he was:

After a morning of markets, we grabbed some delicious street food in BIFF Square. Particularly this little fried Korean pancake full of a nut spread/mix called Hotteok. So good.

For the rest of the afternoon, we took a local bus to Amnam Park to walk along the cliffs and the coast. There were some great views of the ocean. All along the path you could see small trails that seemed to lead straight down the cliffs. You could tell where they were not only by the warn earth, but also by the signs in English saying “Do not climb”. These were all paths that locals take down to fish. I’m not sure how good the fishing would have to be for me to want to descend down one of those paths, but I do know that if it was good enough, there is no way I would want to haul whatever I caught back up.

Eventually there was a spot where you could take some stairs down to some of the rocks in a much safer, less fall to your death, sort of way.

For dinner we headed to the Seomyeon neighborhood and tried to find a place on Gwangbokdong Food Street.

We landed on a great Korean BBQ place. If there is one take away from Korea (and there are many), it is that Korean BBQ is delicious. At this type of place, you come in, sit down. You order your main course; in this case it was a salted pork and some other kind of meet. They bring over a big thing of coals and put it in the middle of your table. You then grill the meet on a grate over the coals at your table. How do you know when it’s done? Well you just eyeball it, and in our case, you just be a little extra careful and overcook it. They give you about half a dozen sides to go with. Kimchi, some different sauces, garlic, peppers, all sorts of stuff. You kind of mix it all together into a lettuce wrap and you’re good to go. Oh and there are no knives, just kitchen scissors and metal chop sticks to cut everything. It was phenomenal, and cheaper than Japan.

Then we found a delicious, but top secret desert place. Why is it top secret? Well because we are going to come back to Minnesota, sell it at the State Fair, and make a billion dollars, that’s why.

Our second day in Busan was fairly similar. We checked out a few markets, and then a few beaches. Haeundae beach is one of the most popular destinations for Koreans during the summer. Here’s what it looks like in July and August.

Not quite that many people there when we stopped by.

After a few hours lounging around the beach and an even better, even cheaper Korean BBQ place for lunch, we headed north to Haedony Yonggungsa Templa. Now most Buddhist Temples in South Korea are situated at the foot of a mountain, and if you’ve seen one…well you’ve pretty much seen them all. This one is a little different and is right on the water.

After the temple we went and checked out Gwangalli beach. With all the traveling it was nice to sit and relax for a while. We grabbed dinner, which will be a post all of it’s own, and then headed back to the beach to check out the Diamond Bridge. The bridge gets it’s nick name from the bazillion white lights on it. The pictures don’t do it justice, but this bridge has a different combination of light shows every night and every season, so it’s a big attraction with locals and visitors alike.

From there we headed to the Kyeongju University area to check out the nightlife. We checked out 3 places. The first was this banana place, which is owned by an ex-pat and specializes in live music. I think we were a little early for their normal crowd so we headed to find another place. We landed on a spot that I’m not even sure had a name. If it did we didn’t see it, and it was probably in Korean. This was more of a true campus dive. Turns out college bars are the same everywhere. There must be a universal recipe for a successful enterprise with co-eds….A bunch of “it’s funny because it’s ironic” stuff on the walls, fried salty food, and cheap drinks. That’s all it takes.

We finished up there and were walking back to the subway when we stumbled on a place called Radio café. Then I muttered a phrase I’ve muttered a million-billion times, “one more-why not”, and we went in. This place also specialized in music, but instead of live music, they had an extensive vinyl record collection. There were a few tuned up locals at the bar, a guy we later found out was the owner, his buddy, the bar tender and us.

We sat down at the bar, Sara ordered a Cass, which is a cheap local beer. I looked at the menu, and tried to decide what to order. Every beverage had an English translation, a description of where it was from, and some specs on the beer…accept one. I thought, finally this must be a nice local brew. Maybe the name doesn’t translate well or something, what other reason could there be for it being the only one without an English name? It was a little expensive, and since I’ve been Mr. Spending Nazi, I had a quick conference with Sara to let her know this is the only beer like this I’ve seen, and I want to give it a try. We agreed and ordered. The beer came, and the only thing on the label were big English letters with the name of the beer and the location of it’s origin…in Spain. Not sure how that didn’t make it on the menu. Oh well, worse things could happen.

So we sat and talked for a while, but mostly observed. Eventually the bar tender came around with a book. Apparently we could request songs. Luckily the locals next to us had good taste in music and one of them requested "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" by Eric Clapton. To which the only words he knew were “Champagne and Whiskey” and belted them at the top of his lungs at the appropriate time while playing a terrible air guitar.

I threw them a Motown curve ball and requested "Midnight Train to Georgia" by Gladys Knight. Turned out they had it. I don’t think anyone else at the bar had ever heard it, but they were polite and bobbed a long and seemed to like it, or at least pretended they did. You’re welcome Korea.

Thinking I must be from Georgia or something, the owner then proceeded to play Rainy Night in Georgia by Rod Stewart, and then Georgia On My Mind by Ray Charles before switching back to some Korean music.

A few more request by our Korean counterparts, including some Tracy Chapman, some terrible terrible attemps at singing along in English, and somehow one of them and me yelling "I love you" back and forth to each other; and then perhaps for the first time in the history of me saying “one more”, it literally was only one more and we turned in for the night.

From Busan, with love.

Will + Sara.