Busan Weekender

5:30 am wake up…. teach till 6:00 pm…. and then why not catch a 2 ½ hour train ride to Busan (a southern Port city)? Sounds like the recipe for a great weekend of deleriously good times!

The original cause of the trip was an Ansan personality’s, Todd’s, b-day. Half of us boarded the subway at 9 p.m. to wait for the others to arrive at the train station. It was a close call as the others finish after 9 and the KTX (high speed train = 297 km/hr at the fastest) was leaving around 10. Yeah we got on the train literally minutes before it left!!!
Once on the train the partying commenced at tables and chairs that faced one another. Yeah needless to say the train ride was fun and the two and half hours flew by. Once we arrived in Busan we had no real plans. Todd’s (b-day boy’s) Korean girlfriend whom lives in Busan met us in a decked out dinosaur suit (costume) and cake for the birthday boy. (he he… she was cute). We then debated whether to store our luggage (backpacks) in lockers at the subway station as we were homeless this night or to lug them around with us. I opted to store it … as my bag was too big to lug around all night (uhm surprise surprise?). So we were off sans luggage to head to the beach and party. That we did… at a gay bar! Haha not necessarily the plan but the music was good and the eye candy of foreign men was good even if they weren’t looking at me… hahaha. ☺ So the night proceeded this way until about 5:00 a.m. at which point a very drunk Todd is telling some very tired friends that we just need to “pass out on the beach.” Now Korea is warmer then Canada but I believe it was at least -9 so not sleeping on the beach weather. I am prolly one of the few sober ones so I took it upon myself to flag down a cab and say I am out and going to find a place to stay… I’ll meet everyone back here in the morning. Luckily, I had about 4 others who were willing at this point to follow me. (The remainder (Toddless) showed up an hour later at the place I was going).

This is where some excitement begins. We ended up at a Jimjil bong… actually the ‘best’ one in Korea. Now a Jimjil bong is a like a spa/sauna/bath house. You enter and pay… it was about $7.50 Canadian for the night. You are given little clothes to wear and you immediately de-shoe and leave them in lockers near the ‘lobby.’ From there the sexes part ways and head to their appropriate ‘bath’ rooms. Here there are lockers for you to de-clothe. You can then go into the many large baths…which are like concrete deep pools… some are extremely hot (one is 60 degrees) and others are a little cooler. Before entering though… you must sit at tiny shower areas with this rough cloth and scrub all the dead skin off of your body… now that is a pretty picture… at least 20 ladies in the nude scrubbing away ☺ In actuality it seems to be a very social experience and many Korean people par-take in it… with friends daughters etc. Most Jimjil-bangs also have other spa amenities such as massages, pedicures, etc. After bathing it is time to sleep. You put on the ‘little suit’ they give you. The women had bright yellow (the sort of yellow that is flattering on no one) t-shirts and matching shorts. Ugh and the suits said the size on the outside of the clothes… I was a big XL walking around… jeezus as if one doesn’t feel that way in Korea already!
So we put on our clothes and walked up to the co-ed sleeping room and met the boys. Hahahhahha the boys were in light browny-grey shorts and t-shirt the lot of us looked like we had just been committed to an ‘institute’. We then had to literally step over hundreds of sleeping Korean people who are just sprawled out on the floor. We luckily found a corner of floor for the lot of us to spread out on and sleep. All I can say is thank-gawd I brought my IPOD. Needless to say my sleep was not ‘stellar’… as I was practically cuddling with strange Korean men… the sweat/ human sleep smell in the room (the floors are heated)… was not what I would call pleasant…. And yet I don’t regret the experience in the slightest. I feel like something like this sort of bath house would never ‘fly’ back home. Yet this culture is so community orientated v.s. individualistic it seems to work. Cuddling next to one another is literally no issue. After about an hour of sleep, I woke up to sit on the balcony and stare at an amazing view of the ocean. The views were truly what made this place wonderful.

Within a couple of hours we were all up and ready to ditch the jimjil-bang. We showered up got re-dressed in our dirty clothes (are bags are still in a random subway station) and headed out for a walk down to the beach. We walked past beautiful cherry blossoms and to the best beach in Korea. I want to say it is called ‘Hyundai’ beach… but I know that is wrong… yet it sounds something close to that. From there we had lunch (fresh sushi) and then took some cabs to a Buddhist Temple.
This temple was unbelievable, solely because of the location. It was right on the beach! It was an active temple as in there were people who were there bowing in worship and then there were also many others like us there as tourists. It was beautiful.
After the temple we finally made it back to pick up our bags and to check in to an actual place we had rented for the night. The “Special Motel” and it was ‘special.’ It was a “love’ motel… but they are really nice. It had the glowing neon lights… when one is in the room the light on the door glows red (this gives a whole new interpretation to ‘red light’ district) the beds are comfortable, and there is always a large plasma tv… it was great. So we didn’t rest long as we all would have fallen asleep never to wake again.
From there Roberta and I were able to meet up with our friend, Andres. He is actually the teacher Roberta replaced (contract was finished) at Brighton who is now working near Busan. He met with us and joined the gang to head to the ‘fish market.’ Now Roberta has crazy ‘fishues’ so her and Andres bonded on the dock while I took in the sights and sounds of the fish market.

ASSSSAHAHHH it was by far one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Fish guts galore… including live fish in colourful, plastic, bowls of water… with old ‘agimas’ (old Korean women) hunched over trying to sell you them… all smacked tightly together down a single narrow strip of dock. Ohhh it was fantastic. The woman were a little pissed at the group of foreigners walking about taking pictures. One even threw a bucket of water on our friend, Frances. Hahaha but it was very uncalled for we were honestly all completely well behaved and respectful. On this note, it is interesting being a foreigner here at times… we are literally always stared at. Trying to buy clothes is awful as they look at me like I am a big monster and sometimes won’t let me try something on or won’t help me or acknowledge my presence. Ohhhh interesting Korea.

After the fish market, I left the group and Roberta, Andres, and then Dean (Manchester man) all went out for dinner without the group. It was nice to catch up with Andres… he is a hilarious improv man… you all would love him!!! After dinner we met back up with the gang (thank gawd for cellphones) and did up Norebong… Korean Karaoke…. And then it was finally time for bed. Some went out clubbing but not this girl.

The next day we weren’t quite sure what to do. The group had shrunk as some left early in the morning back to Ansan, Andres left us, and Todd had ‘alone time’ with his girlfriend… so we were down to a more manageable group of 7. Our hotel was close to China town so we decided to have a look at that… and do what everyone does in Busan’s China town look for Russian Prostitutes.!!! Ohh dear… we weren’t being vulgar or rude. It was kind of a joke and as it was morning we saw some women that looked like they were in ‘the business’ and after literally looking we kept on walking. Luckily, I can say I was with a respectful group of individuals who were maybe a little curious but did nothing more than look (no rude snickering) and walk on. From there we phoned Andres to ask what we should do because one can clearly not look at prostitutes all day long!!! He recommended the park/Busan tower … so that is where we were off to. The park was beautiful, the look out nice, and then there was a cool museum of instruments from around the world that we all were able to play. We then continued walking though the streets looking at some stores/street vendors and then did dinner and left on our train back home. At which point we had to sleep … be woken up to try and catch the subway… and finally arrive home late Sunday night to have a big week of work. All I can say is Thank-gawd I am young … cause I am exhausted just reliving it!!!