Day Two Busan, Korea

February 26, 2010


Second day in Korea


Started at 08:30 this morning. I woke up and got ready to go. I met a Japanese girl who was on vacation in Seoul. Well, I should say a break from school, and she thought she would do a “Working Holiday”. Kind of an interesting to take a break, don’t you think? To find work on her vacation.


Her name is Miki, and she was from KYOTO. The reason she was in Seoul was to study Korean as an exchange student. Kind of like what I am doing in OKAYAMA right now. She has been in Korea for about eight months now and has four more to go. I wish her the best of luck! I will see her again on Sunday.

(This is the apartment that I slept in!)

After the introductions we went and had breakfast together. At the table I met an Australian (from Melbourne), an Englander (from London), an Irishman (from Germany, don’t ask, I didn’t understand it either), and a French lady (from Paris). Everyone was here for different reasons.


The Australian and Londoner were both here for vacation, like myself. The Irishman was here to meet his girlfriend’s parents, and understand the area that she grew up at. Funny thing is, even though they have been going out for a while, he has to stay at this hostel instead of with her parents because of tradition. The French girl was here because she was an exchange student to the local university. Another odd thing, the university didn’t provide her any help finding a room, when she declined the dorms. I wish her the best of luck too.



After breakfast, I went back to the room and packed up my stuff. I was going to have to check out by eleven, and the plan was to put my stuff in a locker at Seoul train station. I didn’t know that it would take about 40 minutes to get there. By the time I was done with breakfast and speaking with everyone it was about 10:00 hours. So when I arrived I was looking at the clock and it was nearly 11:00 hours.

(This is why I would have never found the Hostel on my own, that is their sign.)

I needed to eat lunch before my train at noon as well. It was a tough call, but I decided to go ahead and look around with all my stuff on my back. I went around the main station and looked at some minor things, before just going back and eating at McDonalds real quick. I finished eating and went to a convenience store on my way to the train.



Looking at the cost of trains a few days ago, I bought a Korail pass. It is the same thing as the JR pass for Japan. Because of that I was able to save about $15 per trip. I wonder if it was worth the trouble. I wish the university would set up a computer room in the dorms. One that would have both internet and a usable printer in it. You would not believe the hassle I had to go through to get this printed.



Anyhow, I used the pass to go to Busan, and will use it again on Saturday when I go back to Seoul. The train trip was very smooth and nice. It was fast too. We peaked out at 298 kilometers per hour. The trip was about three hours. I slept for most of it. I woke up about 30 minutes out of Busan. There was rain like a typhoon was hitting. This time I got to the hotel quickly and started my trip around Busan. I didn’t really think about the place that my Hotel was at, but I will talk about that later.



Now, when I arrived at Busan station I walked in and was confused. I didn’t know which way to go. An old man saw me, and my confusion and came up to me and lead me by arm to the machine. He said, “Where, where?” My response was, “Jalgachi.” He pressed a few buttons and asked me for 1500 won (~$1.36). So helpful, he was!



Then I saw an info desk, and walked up and asked for a map. They were staring at me with blank looks. I was puzzled, why wouldn’t the info desk have an English speaker? Well, they did he was just on his way back from helping someone else.


This was by far the coolest guy that I met in Korea yet! First, his English was excellent! His accent was almost nonexistent! He grabbed a map for me, and showed me all the places that I “NEEDED” to go to say that I was in Busan. Then he asked about the ticket situation.



I showed him my ticket, and he inform me that there was an all day pass if I would like to use it. It was only 2000 won (~$1.81) more! He returned my ticket, and then proceeded to get the all day pass for me, and I went on my way! Really, he was a great guy. I hope to meet someone like that when I go to Seoul! Back to my travels!



So, my hotel was located at Jalgalchi. This is the area where a famous fish market would be. So that is where I decided to start my tour. Luckily, it stopped raining and would sprinkle every now and again. Good thing that the market was only about a five-minute walk from the hotel. I have to say, that I was floored when I got there.


I started with the indoor market. Walking in, I was assaulted by a variety of smells. Some were not so bad; others made me wish I didn’t know how to smell. I have to say it was a really nice variety of colors though.



There were also so many different types of seafood. It was really awesome and very loud as well. The shop sellers were screaming at people to come buy their goods. This was probably the freshest that you could get seafood here. I say that because, after you buy the seafood, you go upstairs to have it cooked for you and you eat. Awesome, huh?



From the market, I went to the pier outside. There really wasn’t anything there. It was nice, and I got a couple of shots, but there wasn’t anything worth mentioning. Although, I do have to mention looking from the pier I noticed some cool looking buildings. So, I left the pier and walked into one of many street markets. I continued into the street market and looked around. I wanted to get a shot of the colorful houses behind the market.



Now, this market reminded me of the movie: ‘Ghost in the Shell’. The original, if you are wondering. I was walking down this row or stalls. They were interesting too, and varied in what they sold. Most of them were seafood, but every now and then there would be vegetables, toy store, or an utility/hardware store.



I was walking down alleyways that I probably shouldn’t have. I decided to go down every third one, which I was hesitant to go down. The funny thing is that some of the dark and scary alleyways had some kid that would pop out and start running!




Then I saw an amazing site! It was a scene right out of ‘The Matrix’. There was a gentleman sitting in a small hut with billions of keys! He seriously had to have millions of keys in his store. All the walls were covered in them! The cutting machine was located in the front of the store and he was sitting there talking to a friend.




Because I didn’t know how to ask if I could take their photo, and there was no good way for me to hide the fact that I was taking their photo, I didn’t get any shots of that amazing place. I am ashamed…. :0(



Continuing on, I finally made it to the place with the colorful houses. I took a few shots of that and looked around to realize, I had no idea where I was. Because of that, I did the most obvious thing a guy would do. I started to back track and try to remember where I went and which alleyways I wandered down. To my luck, I actually made it back to a point where I recognized. Seeing all the shops and restaurant stalls in the back alleys once was good enough for me. Therefore, I decided to stick to the main road on the way back.



Now, when I arrived at the hotel, the first thing that I did was look for a wireless signal for internet. There was none…. I was upset. There was also no converter for the power for my electronics. Therefore, I went down stairs to ask for the converter and if there was internet. Unfortunately, there is no internet in this entire building…. Much to my dismay….. So as I was coming back towards the hotel, I ran into a STARBUCKS Coffee house. They typically have internet right? YES! LUCKY!!!



So I went in ordered a cup of Mocha Latte and sat down to look at my emails. I had to meet up with Ben, and sure enough there was an email from him, and my sister. I responded to both, mentioning that I would like to meet up and wanted a place and a time. As to if we meet up, that will be decided tomorrow morning, when I go back to that STARBUCKS for breakfast.



A funny thing happened whilst I was reading and responding. There was a Korean girl mumbling next to me the whole time I was there. It was freaky, but hilarious at the same time. She was practicing her English and would just mumble the sentences on her netbook to herself. It reminded of the joke from Dylan Moran, the one where he is talking about ‘leaving your potential alone!’. I sent the emails quickly, and then got out of there.



Now that I got the emails out of the way, I decided that I wanted to see Gwangan Bridge (Diamond Bridge), from Gwangali Beach. Night was approaching fast, and it would be cool to see the bridge lit up. Success, I was able to get there and see the bridge all lit up. There were many other people there too. Mainly Koreans. They were all taking photos and running around in the dark.



After getting some shots of the city and the bridge, I started walking towards the bridge to see if I could get another angle. 20 minutes later, I ended up at a theme park. I hear the shooting of a pellet gun. Looking around I noticed that there was no charge to enter the park. I walked in and looked at around. There was a batting cage, but I didn’t see the shooting gallery. I thought that I made the mistake, until I walked further into the park. Then there it was… Two shooting galleries right next to one another! It was amazing!



I immediately walked up and asked, “Can I play?” Which was stupid of me, because I’m in KOREA!!! The stall person just gave me a blank look. So I picked up one of the air rifles and lifted up some money. He understood and said, “two thousand!” I handed him the money and tried to shoot something.



There was a bit of confusion at first, because the first game I played I had no idea what I was suppose to do. There was also a group of Korean kids staring at the Asian-American shooting and not hitting what he was suppose to. They were laughing hard, until I decided to swap games.





So, the first shooting game was a fiasco, but I was shooting plastic corks at moving targets. This time it was shooting BBs at stationary targets. I was 50 points short of the high score, and that was because I decided to “Rambo” part way through the game, but the kids that were laughing at me, stopped and just stared in awe. Yeah, that’s right bitches! I can shoot!




I won a prize, although the gentleman said that I should try again to beat the high score and get the ultimate prize…. I just stared blankly and said, “Thanks, but I just wanted to shoot. I don’t have anyone to give that prize too, and really don’t have anyway to take it back to Japan.” Again he looked at me with a weird smile. God, I hate myself…. If I only spoke the language!



Deciding not to waste anymore money at this carnival thing, I moved towards going to Lotte Mall. This is a famous mall with inexpensive goods. Along the way to the train station, I became hungry. I decided to stop at this Korean BBQ place. This being that I have been in Korea for 2 days and not had BBQ yet. I ordered off a menu that was purely in Korean with no photos.



I was told that the dish I ordered was Chicken and very spicy. Now, me liking spicy foods thought nothing of it, but when the waiter said spicy, he meant SPICY! I have not had that type of burn in a long while. I thought he meant spicy like the waiter from last night. I was burning up the whole way to the train, and needed to get some milk to cool down the mouth.




After the problem of the burn was taken care of, I moved to the train station where it took me 45 minutes to get to the wrong station. I went one too far. Darn…. So I decided to hike it back, that way I could get a good view of the scenery. I didn’t realize it but, the time was pushing 22:00 hours! When I arrived at the mall it was closed. Oh well, I guess I will have to go tomorrow.




Looking around there was another mall across the street. A Tesco! A British brand if I am not mistaken. I walked on in and looked around. It was nice, and the prices were not too bad. It reminded me of a mixture of Thailand, Hong Kong, and OKAYAMA. It was high tech, only to a certain point, and inside the store there were “street” stall vendors. After spending about a half an hour there, I went across the way to another STARBUCKS to try to get online.





I thought that all STARBUCKS had internet. I thought wrong. This STARBUCKS had no internet. WHAT A SHOCK! (And a waste of my time) I must have spent a good 20 minutes trying to find a network walking up and down the store, before a clerk (who didn’t really speak English) said, “Sorry, no internet.” Oh, so I gave up and decided to go home.




The train systems here are really cool. They are typically clean too! So, I get on at Centum City, and head on back. This train was PACKED! It made a sardine can look like there was plenty of room. I decided to get off at Suyeong Station and transfer lines twice rather than once. Luckily, I had enough time to run to the transfer train and made it!



Here is where the situation begins. When I get to my second transfer spot: Yonsandong Station, I got lost and missed the train. No problem, I will wait for the next one. I noticed that I was alone for a very long time. Around 20 minutes later a TON of drunk old men start pouring into the station.

(Remind you of OSAKA?)

It smelled as if I was in a bar, and Soju was all over the floor. These Koreans were RUDE! It was weird to see people spitting everywhere, falling over on stuff, and kicking/punching things! I was just not used to this; I am guessing that it is because I just came from Japan.




At one point a drunk good Samaritan, came up to me and told me something in crazy Korean. I think it was along the lines of “…go handle the guy that was sitting next to me, and just got up and started kicking and punching things”, but I don’t know because it was in Korean. I announced that I was sorry, and that I spoke no Korean.





He said something else, and I think it was something along the lines that “Korea is a great place, don’t let this man change your judgment.” The reason for thinking this, is the grandeur way he said Korea (The only word I understood in his sentence), and when I said, “Ne!”, the way he got all happy and decided to sit next to me.



At this time there were a few non-drunk people that walked in, and they were laughing at my predicament. I just sat there and ignored what they were doing. Now that one really drunk guy, who I thought might fall onto the tracks, I did pay attention to. He couldn’t walk straight at all.





So finally, the train comes and we are all loading on. All the drunk people ended in safely. So I was sitting down, because my station was some 18-stops away. The drunk people were leaving me alone, and I was happy. Now, if you haven’t seen the movie: ‘My Sassy Girl’, then you won’t understand my next statement.





I was sitting happily, when a girl stumbles onto the train. She is drunk as a skunk, and decides to stand right next to me. The whole time, I’m just wishing that she won’t throw-up on me. It was comical, to the people around me, and I can tell it is for them. Especially, when the train takes a sudden turn and the girl stumbles towards me, and I don’t know whether to catch her or move. I was wondering where everyone was going all drunk, and apparently they were all on vacation and were staying in my area.





Now, let’s describe my room, as I mentioned was interesting earlier in this post. First, there are mirrors all over the room and the bathroom. Second there is a special place for condoms, and they provide a few just in case you are out. Third, all the TV has on it is pornography, Japanese if you are wondering. Finally, there are all sorts of types lotions and rubbing creams in the corner of the room. Oh well, at least it was cheap.


Well off to sleep now, and more adventures tomorrow!




More photos by clicking on the title or HERE!

(Random cigarette store...)

(Just my luck...)

(Super SPICY meal, more photos HERE)

More photos by clicking on the title or HERE!


Thanks for reading. More days coming soon!


~ Charlee