Last weekend I decided to be adventurous/foolish and travel halfway across the country for a couple days of fun in Busan, a large city located in the southeastern corner of Korea. (For reference, I live very close to the ocean on the western edge about midway through the country.) It was a real headache to get there. Man, Gwangju the weekend before was nothing compared to this! When Friday rolled around and I was already wiped out from a day full of teaching ungrateful brats (well, maybe they’re not THAT bad…), the last thing I wanted to do was spend another six hours traveling by every mode of transportation available. However, I have been wanting to visit Busan for some time now and many of my friends were going to be there. This was the last time I would see most of them until March at the earliest. So determination won out over apathy and laziness, and I set off on a bus toward Buyeo. I suppose I could have asked my co-teacher for help with transportation and reservations, but I was determined to do it myself for once. He does too much for me, anyway, and I gotta get used to doing it myself soon enough, since he’s leaving. I knew there were a lot of buses between Buyeo and Daejeon (the biggest city in my province) and I looked online and saw that trains left Daejeon every ten minutes or so for Busan, so I figured I would be able to find my way to the city all right. What I didn’t calculate into the equation was how long it would take. The bus to Daejeon seriously took forever…I thought I would be able to catch a 7:00 train no problem, but I didn’t even arrive at the bus station until 7:30! Then I had to get a taxi to the train station (because I didn’t trust my memory to catch the right bus—I hadn’t been on it since I went to the Fulbright conference in September). I think the guy ripped me off, but at least I got there in one piece and relatively quickly. Unfortunately, the trains were sold out until 9:00, so I had to wait there. That’s a good thing to remember for the next time I take the train. This time, I didn’t reserve a seat because I had absolutely no idea when I would arrive in Daejeon. I finally got to Busan at 10:45 and took a subway to meet my friends at our motel room. Throughout the course of the trip, then, I traveled by foot, bus, taxi, train, and subway. Whew! Next time I’ll have to try to get a boat somewhere in there J. We didn’t do much that night since it was already so late. The four of them—Jon, Jonah, Sarah, and Kaneda—had all been there since Thursday, so they were rested enough, but I was wiped out! We girls watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith and passed out while the boys went gambling. I found out later that it is against the law for Koreans to gamble. It’s a really strange law. Our room was nice compared to the one in Gwangju, and cheaper, too, but still nothing spectacular. I mean, it had padded walls and 24 hour porn. At least we had enough bedding for all of us…I wasn’t about to complain about a sleeping place in any form!
The next day we met up with Ryan and two of his friends from college and high school. They were visiting him for ten days and had just gotten into Seoul the previous night. Being crazy guys in their early twenties, they decided the best decision would be to stay up all night and catch the first train to Busan. CRAZY. I can’t imagine doing that on jet lag, and in my experience, it’s not a good idea, either. The best thing is to acclimate yourself to local time as soon as possible. I wonder how they are doing now. All the boys ended up sleeping the day away while the three of us girls went to Taedaejeon, a lookout point on an island near downtown Busan. Unfortunately, we misread the subway stop we were supposed to get off at, and ended up going the wrong direction! I suppose we should have paid more attention, since we were going AWAY from the sea. I didn’t really have any idea where we were going, though, and was just content to follow. We figured out our mistake once the cab ride extended to 40 minutes. Yikes! The bill wasn’t too bad, but it was enough to encourage me to consult maps more carefully. Anyway, Taedaejeon…according to my guidebook, on clear days you can see one of the Japanese islands from there! It was pretty cloudy on Saturday, but it was still a spectacular view—cliffs and clouds and the sea…how can you go wrong? There were some awesome climbing rocks near a lighthouse there.
We explored there a little bit, but then had to head out to meet our friend Rohit at Haeundai Beach. He’s an ETA living in Busan and had offered to give us a walking tour of the beach. Between public transportation taking forever and trying to meet up with our power-napping boys, we had very little time to see the beach before the sun went down. It was still a cool tour, but I bet it would’ve been even sweeter to do it as the sun was setting. By this time our group had expanded to include George, an ETA in a nearby city. Afterwards, Rohit left us and Jen and the boys went to a snazzy hotel on the beach for classy drinks while George, Sarah, and Kaneda went out to eat. It was definitely pricey (they had a bottle of scotch for 2 million won, or approximately $2000!), but the view was awesome and it was a really nice place. Then we went out to a meat restaurant and taught Ryan’s friends how to eat Korean-style (fast and furiously). I like eating at these meat places because I just eat the side dishes, rice, and grilled kimchi and get amazingly full for free, because you only pay for the meat at Korean restaurants! Of course, it’s best when I can get some eggs with my meal, but this place didn’t even have that.
After chillin at the hotel for a while, we went out dancing. It took us a little while to find a club, but it was an adventure nonetheless and we eventually did find a place. I’m not a huge dancer anymore, but it’s fun to do it once in a while and I did have a good time. I felt like I was gonna hack up a lung the next day from all the smoke I’d consumed, but those be the breaks, eh? At least I slept really soundly for the 3.5 hours I was down.
I woke early because I wanted to do some more sightseeing before I had to leave on an early train. Luckily I had thought to buy my return ticket when I was in Daejeon on Friday night, because they were almost sold out even then! I had to buy a ticket for a 1:40 train—earlier than I wanted to go, but it gave me some time to hit up Costco in Daejeon, which is conveniently located between the train station and the bus station. Anyway, I went to Gumseong Mountain, which is a place where there was once a large fortress. I didn’t see that part, but I did walk along the old stone fence. I think it’s something like 18 kilometers long and runs across the top of the mountain range there. It was definitely a bit chilly up there, what with the winter wind blowing in from the sea, but the view was well worth it. I would have loved to explore more, but I was anxious to catch my train so I had to head back early. I amazed myself…I managed to find this place all on my own! I really need to be more adventurous about finding places by myself. As much fun as it is to be around other people, it’s so hard to connect with them, and often as not, they are happier to be left sleeping than exploring windy mountainsides with me. Some old man ran after me and insisted I take some of his gloves. People are sometimes randomly so nice to me…I really love it!
The train ride back was uneventful, until I opened my eyes near Daejeon to SNOW! My host mother had told me it was supposed to get cold on Saturday, but Busan had actually been a little warmer than I am used to so I forgot home might be experiencing a cold snap. There must have been a couple inches on the ground and it was really beautiful. I don’t mind seeing it as much as I thought I would. If it’s gonna be cold, I’d rather there was snow, anyway, because it’s prettier. I wonder how often it really snows here, though, since this is the first time I’ve seen it stick and we’re mid-way through December already.
Once in Daejeon, my memory came through for me and I found Costco with absolutely no problem. I bought way too many things there, but I saw some good gifts for the family and I couldn’t resist. I would have bought more except that I had serious doubts about my capability to carry all I already had—candy as goodbye/good job treats for my kids, construction paper for crafts (I’ve been meaning to pick both these items up for months now), fuzzy socks for my host mother and sister, and a huge art set for Ye Eun and Eun Ho. I think they’ll really like it. At least, I hope so…it was expensive!
I finally got home at 8:20, 6.5 hours after I left Busan. What a trip! I definitely want to go back to Busan, but I’d love to spend a longer period of time there since traveling time and expenses are so high. I just realized I have two weeks between my return from Vietnam and the beginning of the school year, not the one I’d miscalculated, so perhaps I will have some time then. I really want to do some Korea exploration then because I don’t think I’ll have much time to do so next semester. I’m pretty sure I don’t really have much time off at all. I really envy the non-elementary ETAs their free time, both during the work week and on random vacations. None of them seem to have to work nearly as hard as I do (which makes sense—they teach supplementary classes and see so many students of the same level that they only have one or two different lessons per week). And on top of that, they all get random vacation time of a week or so at least twice a semester when their students take tests! I wish I had that time to travel. There’s only so much you can do with weekend trips, especially when you have to work on Friday afternoons. I wouldn’t trade places with them EVER because I love my kids and the whole elementary school atmosphere, but I guess I feel deprived sometimes. I get no more recognition, and much less “cultural” time! It’s a mighty good thing I’m doing something I love, or it would be unbearable!