A Trip to Busan

This past weekend I traveled to Busan with Andrew, Steve, Rosie, and Felix.  Busan is a port city located on the southeastern coast of Korea and it's the second largest city in the country.  Andrew and I took the KTX train from Seoul Station to Busan and I'm really glad we did that instead of taking the bus.  The KTX is Korea's high-speed express train.  This thing moves!  We got to Busan in about 2 hours and 30 minutes, while the bus was a 5 hour ride.  The TV monitor on the train told us that we were going 289 km/h, which is about 180 mph!

We got to Busan in no time; the sun was shining and it was really warm out.  We knew the rest of the group wouldn't be arriving for a few more hours so we decided to check out the "world's biggest department store" while we waited.  We hopped on the Busan subway, which was a far smaller and simpler system than Seoul's.  The Shinsegae department store was beautiful, it is indeed certified by the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's largest department store, the Macy's in Herald Square takes second place.

Andrew and I had a lot of fun exploring the place.  There was so much to see on each floor, it was quite overwhelming.  There was an ice skating rink, day spa, and even a driving range.  Once we got word that the group's bus had arrived in Busan, we headed over to the famous fish market to meet them.

The Jagalchi Fish Market in Busan is the Korea's largest fish market and it was definitely worth seeing.  The place was huge!  There were floors and floors of aquariums and vendors and perhaps the coolest thing was seeing the live octopus.  The famous attraction at the fish market is eating "live octopus" at the upstairs restaurants.  The octopus isn't actually still living, but since it's freshly killed, it still moves around the plate.  When Andrew and I had arrived at the market the group had already tried the live octopus.  It was a bummer that they didn't wait for us but what can you do. 

One of the vendors at Jagalchi Fish Market.  All the fish you can imagine!

After the fish market we took a cab to the entrance of the Taejongdae Cliffs.  These cliffs overlook the Korea Straight, which is the water body in between South Korea and Japan.  It is said that on a very clear day you can even see the coast of Japan from the cliffs, however I could not see anything.  We took a tram up to the top and then descended many stairs to get out onto the cliffs.  The sight was beautiful! We could see the Taejongdae lighthouse and an amazing view of the ocean as the sun was setting.

The view of the Taejongdae Cliffs before getting all the way down.

Steve and me on our way down to the cliffs.

Rosie and me as the sun is setting, in the background is the Taejongdae Lighthouse.

After sunset it got quite dark so we left the cliffs and walked around to the other side of the area.  We took a look at some of the memorials that were on the other side of the cliffs and then walked back down to the base.  We jumped on a bus and then met up with Andrew who had decided to do some other stuff around the city.

We were tired and hungry so we decided to look for a motel or a hostel before it got any later.  The group found this sketchy (sketchy is an understatement!) motel outside of Gwangalli (a well-known tourist district in Busan) and decided to take a look.  All the rooms were Korean style, which meant that it was merely a floor with some blankets; no beds, no furniture.  The man flipped on the light to show us the room and cockroaches scattered into the holes in the floor!  No way was I staying there!

We then headed into Gwangalli, which is where the Gwangalli beach is located and a part of the city where a lot of tourists stay.  The beach was beautiful and the area was a lot nice than where we had previously been looking.  We had no problem finding a motel here.  The one the group chose was still sketchy and gross, but it was fine for just one night.

We headed out to the beach and walked through the sand for awhile.  It was so beautiful, even in the dark.  We had an awesome view of the Gwangan Bridge which was all lit up with different colored lights.  We bought some drinks (once again, enjoying the ability to drink legally!) and then headed to the other side of the beach to pick out our fish for dinner!  One of the main attractions of Busan is picking out a fish at a fish market and then having a restaurant skin and bone it for you and then eating it for dinner!

The view of the Gwangan Bridge from the beach. 

At the end of the beach was a huge multi-floored building.  The bottom floor was made up of 20 or 30 different fish vendors, all loud and feisty Korean women trying to sell their fish.  We bargained for a good price from this one vendor and picked out three different fish.  One of them was a flounder, but we're not sure what they other two were.  We paid about 40,000 won for the three fish and then the lady killed them right there in front of us!  She then put them in a basket and we followed her as she led us upstairs to a restaurant on the 5th floor.  Each vendor works for a different restaurant that is in the fish market complex, so depending on who you buy your fish from is the restaurant that you eat at.

The woman that we bought our fish from, she's holding our first selection!

She was just about to kill one of our fish.  Notice my head peaking in on the right, I was trying to get a better look!

The restaurant seated us Korean style, on the floor, and we ate some delicious scallion pancake and salad.  After what seemed like years, our fish was finally served to us on a big platter, all boned and cut up into small pieces.  We had lettuce wraps, rice, sauce, and a bunch of other Korean sides.  The fish was delicious.  It was like a sushi-lettuce wrap combination.  Although I enjoyed it, I much prefer traditional sushi.  Our waiter also brought us a soup which had the rest of the fish in it, including the skeleton and the head.

Steve, me and Andrew with our fish.  The vendor had just brought us upstairs to the restaurant. 

The end product, one of three platters full of raw fish!

After dinner we ventured over to a carnival that was on the beach.  We had a lot of fun watching Felix and Rosie "bullride" and we ended the night riding a big pirate ship ride.  As I'm sure you all can picture, the pirate ship ride is basically a huge boat that swings back and forth.  We were so high up that on the "up" swing that we had a fantastic view of the city!  Exhausted, Andrew and I headed back to the motel shortly after that, we wanted to get up early the next day to see the rest of the city.

Felix and me at the carnival, behind us the epic pirate ship ride.

A Day Out with Mindy

My friend Andrew's mom, Mindy, is visiting this week and yesterday Andrew invited me to go out with them for the day. We had a really nice time and it was fun getting to know Mindy. Mindy is staying at the Courtyard Marriott in Seoul and I met them at the hotel yesterday morning. The hotel was very nice, it was much fancier than a typical Courtyard Marriott and it was on top of a large mall and an E-mart. The best part of all was that Andrew surprised me with a watch that his mom had brought with her for me. Andrew's dad works for a watch company, Armitron, and Andrew has this one particular watch from his dad's company that I really like. The one Mindy brought for me is the same one, just in different colors. Also, Armitron is the official watch of the New York Yankees! Here is a picture of my awesome watch:

Mindy wanted to take the City Tour of Seoul, which is basically a coach bus that you buy a ticket for and it travels in a loop to about 20 different sights around Seoul. You can get off at any stop that looks interesting to you and then just get back the next city tour bus that comes. Also, with the headset in your seat you can hear about the facts and history of each stop. We traveled around on the bus for about 30 minutes and we decided to get off at the Namsan Seoul Tower stop. The N Seoul Tower is one of the many things on my "Korea to-do" list so I was happy to be able to go. Also, we lucked out with the weather being sunny and beautiful so we had a perfectly clear view of the entire city.

The N Seoul Tower is not the tallest tower in Seoul, but it's still a staple of the Seoul skyline standing at 1,574 ft. above sea-level. Mindy bought tickets for all of us and we stood in a short line and then took the elevator up. The view was breathtaking! The observation floor is cylindrical so we had a 360 degree view of Seoul. It was amazing! The coolest part of the view is that the windows were all labeled with major cities around the world at the approximate position of where they would be located. Here is a picture of the bottom portion of the tower, and what the view looked like from the observation floor.



Afterwards, we jumped back onto the next city tour bus and we looked at some more sights in passing. We thought about stopping at one of the many palaces but by this time it was almost 4 and they all closed at 5. We got off at the Namdaemun stop because Mindy wanted to see one of the famous markets. Neither Andrew nor I had been to Namdaemun yet so I'm glad we went. Namdaemun is one of the most famous traditional, open-air markets in Seoul. Literally meaning "south gate", it's located very close to the historical south gate of Seoul. The market was awesome, but very overwhelming! Many, many street blocks are filled with thousands of vendors selling everything from live squid to Korean souvenirs to lingerie! It's literally one-stop shopping for the people of Seoul. Here's a few pictures of Namdaemun market.


Mindy reminds me of Grandma Rhoda in many ways. At 57, she was way ahead of Andrew and me everywhere we went and she was determined to make the most of every minute of the day! We were definitely hungry by the time we got to Namdaemun so Mindy thought it was time for a little nosh. We shared a scallion pancake and some potato tempura from a street vendor which hit just the right spot! We zipped through the market pretty fast but I definitely plan on returning to do some gift shopping and such. I did buy one thing though, Mindy and I both bought Korea swimcaps. Nothing like showing a little Korea pride when I train for another triathlon this summer!

Afterwards we decided to grab some dinner and so we thought we'd try this noodle and dumpling place that was recommended in Mindy's travel guide. The restaurant was located in Myeongdong, the shopping district, and it's very famous for it's noodles. I have to say though, it was nothing like what I was expecting. It was this tiny, hole-in-the-wall place, and we had to wait in line to be seated for about 15 minutes. The food was very good though, only 4 different options, all of which were the same price, 7,000 won, which is about 6 bucks and change. I ordered the soup and Mindy and Andrew ordered both the dumplings and the soup to share. Each portion was huge! My bowl of soup was bigger than my head and I barely made a dent in it. It was a chicken broth with the restaurant's famous noodles and a couple of dumplings mixed in with some ground chicken. Even though the restaurant had take-out service, they refused to give me a to-go container to take the rest of my soup back to the dorm. I could've heated it up and had it for lunch today! Andrew and I even looked up on his phone how to say in Korean "Please wrap it up, we are poor college students" but they still said no. I was very upset, but oh well, Korea is not exactly known for their customer service. Mindy treated to dinner which was very nice of her.

We strolled through the hustling and bustling Myeongdong for a bit before heading back. We walked by a street vendor selling these huge creampuffs and she was filling them right in front of us! Of course we couldn't resist, so we shared one for dessert and it was delicious. We looked around some more and then got on the train. It was so much fun spending the day with Mindy and Andrew, it was nice to be around a mom for a bit, but really it just made me miss my wonderful Mom even more.

Myeongdong

This afternoon after I got out of class, I decided to venture out of Sinchon for a bit and explore Myeondong. Having a roommate again is great, but I was really craving some alone time. Myeondong is one of Seoul's biggest shopping centers. Namdaemun and Dongdaemun are Seoul's biggest open-air markets, but Myeondong makes up Seoul's biggest commercial area. It's many many street blocks filled with food and clothing vendors and the shops on these streets are mainly clothing and cosmetics. It is also the location of many popular Western stores. I saw a Gap, Forever 21, Ralph Lauren, and there was even a Lacoste and Louis Vuitton store.

Honestly, today was the first day I set out with the intentions to do a little bit of shopping for me. Up until this point I hadn't had a chance to do much clothing shopping and I've mostly been shopping for all my wonderful friends and relatives. But I wanted to see Myeongdong and also check out the Forever 21, which is one of my favorite stores at home. Everyone talked about how huge and wonderful it is, and I gotta say, when I went in I wasn't that impressed! It was a nice store, and it was by no means small, but the Forever 21 in good ole' Smallbany is probably 3 times as big! Who woulda thunk?

I did enjoy shopping there though, I felt like I was back home at Crossgates, except for the fact that I was maybe one of 4 white people in the whole store. That's okay though, I've gotten used to standing out. Now I just smile back at people when they stare, especially the small children. I did manage to find 2 things though and if you know me, you know that I probably didn't pay full price for them either! I found a skirt and a top, both on the sale rack! I was very pleased and I think Grandma Rhoda would've been quite proud.

I wanted to stay a little bit longer but I had made plans with my friend Kara to make fried rice together for dinner so I decided to head back to Sinchon. The Myeongdong subway station was extremely crowded so it took me a little while to reach the platform; I definitely plan on coming back to Myeongdong soon though. Also, this weekend I'm hoping to check out the other markets for a little gift shopping! And yes, I am taking gift requests/suggestions, so don't be shy and speak up!