My Trip to Busan

I just returned from an amazing trip to Busan, South Korea's second largest city, located on the southeast coast of the country. It is only a 50 minute flight from Jeju City to Busan, and I had mid-term exams (which meant no classes for 6 days) so I took off to the mainland for a vacation. I met four friends in Busan: Sara, Janaki and Jy as well as the ETA who lives there, Rohit. As a city, I prefer Busan to Seoul; Busan is on the ocean (Korea's largest port) and there is a more relaxed feel to the lifestyle and bustle of everyone's daily lives. We visited two big beaches that easily rival Jeju's most secluded ones, and both were surprisingly clean, especially considering they were so urban. After four days in Busan, I went with my friend Janaki on a 2 hour train ride to the town where she has been living: Gumi, South Korea. Gumi is known for its facotories and blue collar atmosphere, but it was a really charming little town. It was nice to see how my experience could've been much different if I had been placed in a different area, especially on the mainland. Janaki teaches at an all boys high school, so I went to school with her to see what it was like. All boys is a far cry from all girls! The boys were very cute and fun, but also much louder and harder to "talk over" than my girls. Janaki has a very nice homestay family who lived in the USA (Salt Lake City) for a year in 2001. Now I am back on Jeju Island. Tomorrow, Friday, is "Sports Day" at my school, and I'm not completely sure what that means, but I will find out soon enough. I will post pictures from that as well. In one week I am headed to the USA for a mere 3 days, to attend my cousin's wedding in Napa Valley, CA. I am very excited to see my family!

My homestay father works in Busan and lives there most of the time (he flies home 2 times a month for a few days). He works at a horse racetrack in Busan, and he was kind enough to renta condo for me and my friends to stay in one of the nights that we were in Busan. He also took me and my friends out to an incredible sushi/sashimi dinner and for coffee afterwards.

Gwangali Beach, one of the beautiful white sand beaches in Busan. At night this is a hotspot, especially on weekends. There are vendors walking around selling fireworks (roman candles mostly) and people are shooting them off continuously at all hours of the night. The bridge in the picture is a famous bridge in Busan, and Gwangali Beach offeres a beautiful view of it when it's lit up at night.

This is a temple that we visited on Saturday. It is really amazing, because it's the first temple that I've visited that is built on the rocks next to the ocean. Saturday was Children's Day in Korea, so everyone was in great spirits and the temple was really crowded with tourists.

Sara and I posing with our Starbucks lattes, a rare find in South Korea (at least in the places where we live). In the background is Haeundae Beach, an upscale area beach area which hosts many Japanese tourists. We were lucky to stay in a condo near the beach on Friday night (my homestay dad rented it for us).

A view from the other side of the bridge and two of the Haeundae condo buildings. We stayed in a building similar to this one one night. We also went to the sauna (steam room/hot baths) on teh 5th floor with windows that looked right out onto the ocean, it was really nice.

Sara and I practicing some of the poses that are so common among our high school girls and other Koreans. The hand covering the mouth is a particularly common pose for Korean high school girls. I think there are two reasons they do this: to make their jaw/face appear smaller and to symbolize how shy they are.

A kimchi vendor at one of the markets... who knew there were so many different kinds of kimchi?