So we live a little south of Seoul and Busan (spelled here 'Pusan') is on the south-east coast of South Korea. We took a KTX bullet train from our area to Busan station and made it there in a bit over 2 hours! Our train didn't leave until 10pm on Friday night, so after school we packed up and took the subway to Gwamyeong (about an hour away) where we caught the KTX. We were by far the loudest people on the train! We managed to get a "set" for our seats, so we had the middle area of the train with 4 seats and a table:
It was really sweet to be able to all sit together and use the table for some card games (which we of course did NOT turn into drinking games ;) The 4 of us were heading to Busan to meet up with about 10 other people for our friend Kathleen's birthday. We got into Busan station well after midnight, and managed to meet up with the rest of the group around 1am. It was a long day!! We hung out with everyone at the bar we met them at for a few hours, had a mini crisis when Brianna thought she lost Katie's backpack with all her belongings, managed to find the pack, and head out to find a place to stay that night. In all honesty, the 4 of us half expected to be sleeping on the beach that night but we found a cool motel called Motel Olympia. Of course we had to stay there! It turned out to be a love motel, complete with a scandalous picture on the wall and a whole blacklight system. It worked out well though, being so cheap and the lady let all 4 of us stay in one room which they usually don't do. I fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow, and woke up in the morning with Bri and Amy on the bed and poor Andy in a corner on the floor with no blanket! We set out to find some breakfast and then made our way to the beach!
Haeundae Beach was so amazing, it was rather overcast when we got there but the weather held up for us the rest of the weekend! It was perfect temperature the whole time and mostly sunny. Here is a picture of the beach at peak season:
Crazy, right?!! Luckily, it was not nearly as packed. You can see some pictures of the beach further down below this post. Anyway, we met back up with everyone else and spent a great day at the beach on Saturday. There were some very interesting, EXTREMELY tan Korean men with not nearly enough clothing on (think European beach wear) setting up a volleyball net so of course we get into that. I played 3 games and we dominated the court! Eventually none of the people who originally set it up were playing anymore, so they made a 2 game max rule so they could get their court back haha. Some other people were playing soccer so a few of the group also got into that. We were all EXHAUSTED after all the sun and beach sports so around 5 we went to check into the next hotel and relax for a bit. Plus we had to save our energy for the big World Cup, Korea vs. Greece, soccer match later that night! Being in Busan, surrounded my thousands of soccer fans all rooting so strongly for Korea was such an amazing experience! It awesome to see how much sporting events like this bring people together and it was so cool to see everyone so excited for their team. We watched the first bit of the game under cover (it rained for a bit) at dinner, the place went crazy at the first goal! After that we moved to the beach where they had a huge screen and seating area set up for people to watch the game. We saw the second goal there and the beach went crazyyyy!!! Everyone was waving around their noisemakers and chanting the Korea fight chants, it was awesome. Another long night but totally worth it to see the match.
Sunday was spent relaxing and playing some more on the beach, and then we caught our train home around 7pm. It was overall an exhausting but fun little vacation! I can't wait to go back to Busan and experience the city, I hear they have some amazing traditional markets. And I didn't get a chance this time to order any fresh seafood, which is supposed to be phenomenal in Busan! Guess that means I have to make another trip back... I'm not complaining!
That's all for now, it's lunch time!
Tia Teacher
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