Hello Busan!

This weekend I traveled out of Daegu for the first time since I arrived... and we went BIG! On Friday after school, Adrienne, Kaleena and myself headed to the train station in downtown and hopped on a short 2 hour train ride to Busan. We arrived and had a 10 minute walk (if we hadn't gotten lost) to our hostel.

Here it comes!

On the train to Busan

When we arrived, we were greeted by several other Daegukins waiting for us and we were shortly joined by several others. We decided to head out to dinner, where we ate (slightly expensive) Korean BBQ and were joined by several native Koreans. The conversation and company were great, but they decided not to join us for drinks at the pub. After a few drinks, a few of us decided to turn in, while the rest stayed behind to continue the evening.

Our new Korean friends

The next morning a few of us headed to the large fish market in town. The Jagalchi Market sits right on the water, and you can find any type of creature food you can imagine. The stalls went on for ever, and we kept finding little areas that had even more seafood. One of my favorite memories was finding 2 men playing a traditional Korean game, kind of like chess, right on the waterfront. It was interesting to see the Korean people in their element, women selling the catch, the men bringing it in. In the building, you can go have your fresh fish prepared for you and you can eat it raw, right there. It doesn't get much fresher than that. However, we decided to pass and go for a little shopping and bibimbap for lunch.

The beginning of the fish market

Little men playing the chess-like game

Fishing boats

Building where you can eat your raw fish

Best bibimbap, EVER

After lunch, we headed to H & M to do a little shopping (and by a little I mean drop some serious dough). After we had broken the bank, we went back to the hostel to meet up with the others and go out for a Chinese dinner. Man let me tell you, we had NO IDEA how spicy it was going to be! We struggled to get through dinner, but it was a great time.

Spiciest Chinese dish

After dinner, a friend of mine from college, Mark, joined me and the group for a night stroll on the beach. It was absolutely beautiful outside (though a little cold) and getting to talk with everyone and enjoy the beautiful beach was so relaxing. We hung out for a bit, dipped our toes in the water (my first time in the Pacific Ocean!)  and then headed inside to warm up. The pub we ended up in was on the 14th floor of a building that was extremely narrow and had beautiful views. I couldn't believe how wonderful the sight was.

The beach at night

Kaleena and myself

Myself and Mark

Group hanging out on the beach

View of the bridge from the pub

View of the beach from the 14th floor

I didn't stay out long because I had a long day ahead of me, so I went back to the hostel to get some shut eye... up next, HOLI HAI!!!

Our trip to Costco

Today, Maila and I decided to make the hour and 15 minute trek Costco (which is located on the other side of the city) to grab some groceries...

After grabbing the bus, sitting for what seemed like forever, we headed into Costco for pit stop #1- PIZZA. Costco has the best pizza (meaning the most American-like) I've found yet, odd I know, but true. So we grabbed some pizza and soda, sat down, and enjoyed the greasy yumminess before heading into the store to shop.

View of the first floor from escalator 

Got fish?

Extensive wine seleciton

It began as a slow, casual shopping spree. A few things here and there made their way into our shared cart. We then headed up to the top floor where the food is located... ahh wine and chocolate samples... peanut butter and honey... CINNAMON TOAST CRUNCH and HONEY NUT CHEERIOS! I went WAYYY overboard... and before you know it... BAM your cart is full, you don't have enough bags, and you've spent $300... oopsies... but it was a very successful day, I finally made it home (with help from Adrienne from the bus stop) with all these goodies... I had to buy in bulk, so I won't be needing to go back for A LONG TIME...

PIIZZZAAAA

How you get your cart from the first to second floor...

Biggest bag of pretzels I've ever seen

The aftermath

 On the bus home

A picture frame, pretzels, pasta, bagels, chicken, peanut butter, tortilla chips, ravioli, lunch meat, rondele, sausages, BBQ sauce, cream cheese, brownie mix, Ritz crackers, cinnamon toast crunch, muffins, alfredo sauce, cajun spice, honey nut cheerios, garlic salt, honey, salsa and 3 bottles of wine

Hiking Palgongsan

Today I met up with 4 other EPIK teachers, Katherine, Mary, Jordan and Steve, to hike one of the larger mountains in Daegu, Palgongsan. First, "-san" means mountain, so it is repetitive when I say "Palgongsan Mountain" which  I do all the time... oh well, I'll try...

When I was on my way to meet up with everyone, I noticed all of the Korean men and women were all wearing heavy duty jackets and scarves, etc. I got quite worried since I was only wearing a long sleeve shirt, so I asked Katherine to bring me a backup sweatshirt, but it was so nice outside, I never needed it! Once we had met up, we made our way to the bus that would take us to the temple area. It was actually a pretty long ride, which surprised me. But it was all in good company and thats what the day was about!

When the bus dropped us off, we headed to the temple and Buddha first. It was so peaceful and reminded me a LOT of China. It finally hit me that I'm in Asia. It definitely set the mood for the day... peaceful, calm and relaxing...

Me, Mary and Katherine

Under the Buddha

Natural spring water... you drink from the plastic spoons... best water I've ever had

We then headed to the Information Booth to grab a map and ask about the best route to take. The lady told us to stay on the white routes, that the red ones were "dangerous, only for professionals". After discussing with the group, we decided to take one of the red routes anyway, because the white routes were all sidewalks (which isn't hiking in my opinion). The lady at the booth must have seen us walking toward the red line, because she come running up behind us "excuse-ah me, excuse-ah me.... do you have mo-bi-le phone with you?" Yes we do. "Ok, here is my number, in case you get lost." She gives us not one, but two phone numbers "just in case". Poor thing, she really didn't want the group of 5 foreigners to go missing on her watch. So we thanked her, and went on...

Me, Steve, Mary, Katherine and Jordan

We didn't actually know where we were going, we just knew we wanted to get off the concrete, so we just started walking and randomly found a path. We would sometimes see Koreans walking somewhere and we would be like "I want to get up there!", and that is pretty much what we did.... just walked toward the Koreans when we didn't know what to do... We knew we eventually wanted to get to the cable car to take it back down the mountain, so we kept an eye out for it. At one point, we were standing looking at a sign trying to decide where the cable cars were and at one point Steve (kind of mockingly) said "cable-eh car-eh?" and BAM a Korean turned around and was like "cable-eh car-eh, cable-eh car-eh!" and started pointing us in the right direction. We have found that sometimes it is necessary to put a Korean accent on our English words... hey it got us pointed in the right direction... so off we went...

 

In the poor information lady's defense, the path to the cable car was intense... a lot of rocks, and pretty steep incline... some parts you had to use a rope to help pull yourself up the side of the mountain... but it was definitely worth it... we kept finding these amazing views... we would turn and say "wowww"... then 5 minutes later the "oh wow" would be even bigger...

Just keep climbing... 

At one point I saw a huge rock that I really wanted to get on top of, but didn't really know if I could... but alas I hopped up and found a great spot... we actually all made it up and decided to hang out and enjoy the view (and the break) for a few minutes... then we continued on our way, finding more rocks to climb in the process...

My favorite rock on the hike

Almost died getting off this rock, but it was worth it... 

We finally made it to the top, where there is a restaurant and cable car departure spot. You could tell that a lot of people would ride the cars up AND down, since they had little kids with them or were walking in heels. From the top we could see quite far, and we kept pointing at peaks we wanted to try to hike to next... so I'm sure that we will  be hiking soon again....

On our way back down

But the day wasn't over... we needed to EAT! We decided to head back down the mountain a bit to grab some Korean BBQ, but we couldn't find a place we really liked (the boys were DEAD SET on eating BBQ, and I can't lie, I kind of was too) so we decided to head back downtown to grab some food.

Some of the best meat I've had here... 

After a mishap with a restaurant, losing a camera (not me! and we found it) and the boys getting off the bus at the wrong stop, we finally made it to BBQ Alley where we ate at WHAT, a really good (but kind of expensive) BBQ restaurant. I'll definitely be going back!

Today was one of my favorite days in Korea so far. I absolutely loved seeing the Buddha and temple, hiking the mountain, seeing the views and spending the day getting to know my new friends better. I do have to say, one of my favorite memories of the day was when we were at the Information Booth, and a few of us had gone into a little store, and all of a sudden this little boy is staring at me, from right under my nose, literally 1 foot from me. I said "HI!"... this little kid literally screamed "aaaaahahhhhh!!!!!", like a full blown, terrified scream! It was hilarious. Oh, and the part where a bird pooped on my arm before we ever got on the bus (a great start to the day if you ask me)....

I can't wait to go again!