Busan was such a great weekend trip. Other than Jeju, it is my favorite place I have visited in Korea thus far. I much preferred it to Seoul. It took me awhile to realize why, but a lot of it was very westernized. They have an army base in Busan, so there were tons of Weiguks (foreigners) walking around. We even ate at a couple of restaurants where the menus were all in English. It was an exciting change. I am glad that I live somewhere that isn't like that though, because in that situation I might have never taken the time to acclimate. In Busan, there really was no need. For the most part, it felt like any beach city in the states. There was a group of people playing volleyball, children were flying kites, people were laughing. Same same.
However, there were some startling differences. The most shocking thing we saw was the red light district. I was absolutely not anticipating that being a part of our trip. I've been told that they have these in several areas of South Korea that I have been to, including somewhere right by my subway station. However, I've never seen one. I assume that most are slightly tucked away and out of sight unless you are looking. This one was not. It was right off the beach, and we were a ways down it before even realizing what it was we were seeing. It was so sad yet intriguing. Not stopping to gape open-mouthed at these women proved quite a challenge. They were in these miniature rooms that all had window boxes, so it was like they were actually pushing out onto the side walk. You didn't have to look inside a window to see, the women came out to you. Many of them were in regular clothes and doing regular things in their miniature rooms, like watching TV or eating dinner. I think that's why it took us awhile before realizing what we were seeing. So many things are different here so seeing things we're not accustomed becomes more natural. Towards the end of the row, the women were dressed in what I would consider to be more stereotypical attire, many of them smoking cigarettes and enticing men as they walked by. It was so unexpected.
This woman had her puppies on the beach and she was so happy to hold them and pose for us. They really love to do that sort of thing here. It's very hard to catch people in natural moments; because the second they see the camera, they throw up the peace sign or something similar and equally cheesy. After she posed she handed them to me to take a picture. It was pretty entertaining as I am not a big fan of animals when I'm clean. I did have a full body layer of protection on with my jacket and gloves, which helped tremendously. It would have been completely random and unexpected if I had not seen things like this happen several times already here. I took a couple of photos on the beach with her dogs and we went on our way.
We went to the aquarium and right inside they have this giant portrait of the Mona Lisa, fishy-style. I do not understand why they do this here, but they seem to enjoy it. It's common, for sure.
Wow, Beef Blood Jelly Soup sure sounds appetizing. It always amazes me that they can't find someone who speaks English to translate things out here. Many of their products, road signs, etc. are in broken or just incorrect English. I should look into that job.
Some of the fish at the aquarium. They had many things I had never seen before, like these big teeth!
We took a train from Suwon, the city we live in, at one in the morning and arrived in Busan around 5 am Saturday morning. The bus station is a little ways from the beach, so we got on the first subway that morning. It is always a pleasant surprise when it's not packed, but here it was so quiet. Everyone was sleeping!
They had these bumper cars just on the other side of the beach. This felt very old to me, and I was surprised to see that they still worked. A couple of children were riding in them when we walked by, otherwise I would have assumed it was an old run-down park. It was very cool to see out in the open like that.
We walked right to the beach when we got off the subway at about 6 am Saturday morning. The moon was still out, but there were a few people there. It was really beautiful, but quite chilly.
This was another beach in Busan. I liked seeing the bridge cut across the water like this, but I think if I lived there I would prefer a more natural beach setting. This was so unusual.
I sat out on the beach strip and had some hot chocolate and mozzarella cheese sticks. Everything on the menu was in English. It was strange that there was no Korean on it whatsoever. If I were Korean, that would make me so angry. Learning English is becoming more and more of a necessity over here. They really have no choice but to adapt, which is sad.
I got a Thai Massage while there, and this was the bed. It was really cool, and completely different than any massage I've ever gotten. The woman who did it was from Thailand, and seemed to speak less Korean than even I do. Her English was good though, so we mainly talked that way. She used her entire body to give me the massage. I am so glad I've been over here for awhile, otherwise I would have been so uncomfortable by her invasion of personal space. A couple of times it was awkward, but for the most part I was able to enjoy it. More than anything, she was stretching my body out. It wasn't particularly relaxing, but I did feel better after it was over.
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