Lunar New Year's in Busan

Last week was Korea's Lunar New Year holiday. The Lunar New Year is more important here than is Christmas or the Western January 1st New Year's. Its a holiday that in size is comparable to Chuseok. Both are a time in which Korean families travel to come together, eat food, dress in traditional hanbok fashion and pray to their ancestor's.

Jason, Scott, Brian and I decided to take advantage of our days off from school and travel down south to Busan. We left early on Wednesday morning, catching a bus from Wonju. The ride lasted a little over 4 hours, not as long as we'd expected actually and we only ran into a little traffic. Then it was a long subway ride to our hotel. Busan is a big city on the very southern tip of Korea, right on the beach. It was a lovely, bright city with a simple network of subway transportation. If Seoul is big like New York, think of Busan as Washington DC.

It was easy enough to find our hotel, located near a large Lotte Department store, Busan Tower and the "world famous" Busan fish market. Our hotel was nice and cheap. Actually it was what is known as a "love motel" in Korea. Its primary market is for those couples sneaking around, or men meeting a special "lady friend" for the first time. Don't worry, it was nice and clean, but it had an old feel to it. Love motels are very cheap and sometimes you can get charged by the hour instead of by the night. They have full beds and bathrooms, some even with small saunas or jacuzzi tubs, and they can also help you find an "escort" for the night, if you call one of the ladies whose picture adorns the cards left near the front door in the late evening. There is also a large selection of movies on hand, from PG to NC-17. All in all it was a pretty decent place. I had heard about these kinds of hotels for a long time so I was excited to finally see what one was all about!

After checking in we decided to wander around near the hotel, we were waiting to meet up with a larger group of EPIK teachers that I hadn't seen since orientation, who happened to be staying at our same hotel! Right next to the hotel was a park were Busan Tower was as well as a few fancy statues of dragons. The park was elevated and you could see the port areas of Busan all around. The weather was beautiful, warm, clear and bright. I was in love! After the other EPIK folk arrived we walked down into the nearby shopping area to (finally!) get some food. We found ramen and eagerly ate. Then we went back to Busan Tower as a whole to take the elevator to the top. It was kind of like Seoul Tower, but not as big and not as popular. The view was amazing though! Before us in the glimmery sunlight lay the city. Busan is sprinkled among the mountains and bordered by the sea. With no crowds in the tower we were able to take lots of pictures and sit eating ice cream from the cafe watching the sunset. From the tower we could see not only our hotel, but had clear views of the large port system, fish market, shopping districts, it was a great way to orient one's self!

The rest of the night consisted of us wandering around the downtown shopping area that surrounded the park. We had a "Busan style" dinner aka it had squid in it and then ended the night at a swanky looking bar, followed, of course, but norebang! We finally returned to the hotel around 3am.

The next morning we, not surprisingly, we didn't wake up and get out of the hotel until about 11am. Because it was the actualy the Lunar New Year, when we got into the shopping area of town near our hotel, it was deserted. We finally found an open resturant and had bibimbab. We walked over to the fish market but the major part of it was closed and no boats were unloading, it was a holiday. So I will have to return in the future! Scott said he wanted to go to the beach while the rest of us wanted to go to a museum. We were going ot part but the longer we stood outside in the warm, fresh air, we realized we would rather stay outside too. Scott has been to Busan before so he knew what beach was good to check out. We took the subway and emerged on a street that reminded me so much of Downtown Long Beach, near the convention center! It was lined with shops that led to the sea.

Here the city was much different. Near our hotel was a port area so it was little more grimy and dirty, but not bad. There were also many people who were obviously dock workers. But at the beach it was all posh and tourism! And it was crowded! We spent some time on the sand, looking at the waves, until Scott decided he would take a walk on his own. That left Jason, Brian, Eric and I to find food, we were hungry. Right when we walked up to the beach we noticed these American skater punks trying to do tricks in the small skate park. (I say punks because they had baggy pants, t-shirts and spiker hair, they CLEARLY stood out.) But as we walked by them one of them came up to Jason and I and was super nice, he gave us a promotional card for the bar he works at, a Mexican place with TACOS! We definitely wanted Mexican food but the place didn't open until after 7pm and it was only 2pm. So we had to break down and settle for... TGI Friday's. I said we were in a tourist zone! They had all sorts of a American food and chains. Our group savored our food... nachos, burgers, good drinks... yum!

Afterwards we attempted to visit an aquarium and then a museum. The aquarium was too crowded and we had the wrong directions for the museum. So after a quick subway ride, we arrived back at the beach to meet the larger EPIK group. We decided to go to a casino in one of the hotels because foreigners get free entry (Koreans have to pay.) It was a most depressing and not fun casino. The most funny/most annoying part was when we entered the casino. They looked at our IDs before they let us in. Obviously it was no problem for Jason and I, but for Eric, who is Korean-American, they looked a little closer. And then for Scott, who is Japanese-American, they were really suspicious. They thought he was a Korean trying to sneak in. This rightlfully made Scott upset. The guard tried to speak to Scott in Korea and he didn't understand. Then Eric told the guard Scott was Japanese and the guard got flustered and apologized in Japanese! Jason tried to recover the situation and say, no, Scott is a "mikuk" or American but it was too late. Scott was frustrated at being called Korean and then Japanese instead of just America. Like I said, it was amusing but if I were him, I would have been annoyed.

After the casino we went back to the beach at night, which was beautiful with all the lights of the buildings shining on it, then we had some coffee and split again from the larger group. We ended up at Papa John's for dinner. We just couldn't resist. (Or maybe I couldn't resist.) It was so good, just like pizza at home. The night ended back in our area of town with Cold Stone ice cream, chatting with fellow foreigners down from Seoul, a couple games of pool (we had also played the night before) and a walk through the neon light streets around our hotel. Scott and I walked around alone which was really fun. We saw lots of semi-illicit institutions were you can go have drinks with girl escorts. I'm not sure how far their services extend. We did see a very suspicious building though. We kept walking in front of this dark building, with blacked out windows. Yet the bottom floor was lite and just looked like an empty ballet studio with TVs pushed up againste the wall. Glass doors led inside. Yet out front was a guard, in ordinary enough clothing, yet with a ear peice. And the more times we walked by, the more we noticed other men with ear peieces, stratigically placed around the area, but looking like civilians. I'm convinced it was a prostitutes den. (And I really think I may actually be right!)

The next day was our day of travel home. Before that we tried the fish market one more time but it was still pretty much shut down. Eric bought some raw fish but I think we overpaid. We also made it to the museum that day. It was an exhibit on "Trick Art" -- basically a place to take tons of really funny pictures! They take famous works of art and then paint them to look like the are popping out at you, etc. You can "hold hands" with people in pictures, etc. and it all looks real! It was mindless silly fun that took us quite some time to find. A quick Starbucks later we hopped on the subway towards the crowded and busy bus station.

Busan was a great trip and a great city. It was more fun than I expected to just wander around without a plan or sense of time. We laughed a lot and just let our whims take us, a nice way to travel that I am definitely not used to! And if you can tell, we ate A LOT of junk!

Next on the agenda... Thailand and Cambodia for two weeks!