Lincoln Peterson

The first place I ever went to in Korea was Busan. It just takes a couple hours by ferry from Fukuoka, so it was my first stop.

But I felt like I didn’t have enough time. It was one of my favorite places but I never stayed a proper few days to enjoy it. So this weekend I went to Busan for 2 nights.

There’s a new bullet train — ITX — that goes straight from my town in Gyeonggi-do to Busan without transfers, so I wanted to leave work a little early and try it out. But it took about 5 hours. I don’t really mind the long ride though, because travelling by train is a lot more comfortable than by car or plane.

We tried to play CIV 6 together to pass the time, but the free wifi on the train is too slow, and I don’t want to drain my hotspot battery, so it didn’t end well. I’ll just look out the window and watch my beloved YouTuber ハヤトの野望.

Finally get to Sinhaeundae station at 8 pm… I don’t have the energy for anything, but the hotel is quite far, and it’s storming like crazy. I go out to the taxi stop and there is no taxi but one. He shouted at me as he ran inside to avoid the rain that there’s no taxi available here! But he ended up taking us anyways to our hotel.

I realized pretty quickly listening to his older Busan man Korean that it was too difficult to understand. The accent is pretty strong, and I’m not adjusted to it. I felt the same way when I first went to Kansai… I wonder if this is how people feel when they learn British English and then go to Alabama or something.

I’m too tired, so we just ordered some raw fish to our door with Yogiyo. And I went to the convenience store to get one of my favorite alcoholic drinks in Korea, 生lemon. It’s called “raw lemon” because it has a real lemon that floats to the top when you drink it. But this time, I got an extremely rare can because it had TWO lemons!

And my girlfriend can’t finish her drink, so I have to drink it so it doesn’t go to waste. The 生lemon is really strong, so I think I drank a little bit too much and broke this cup in the bathroom when I was brushing my teeth. I’m going to hold off on the 生lemon for a few weeks.

The Busan Blue Line Park‘s first/final stop is a short walk from my hotel, by Songjeong, so we take it for a nice ocean view.

An all access ticket that lets you get off at every station costed about 15,000 won.

We ended up stopping at Daridol Skywalk, Haewol, Dalmaji Tunnel, and Mipo.

It was fun, but I think you can skip the tunnel. It can hardly even be called a tunnel, it was more like an arch.

We went to Gaemi-jip for lunch, which is a very famous restaurant for stir-fried octopus. It’s the first Korean food I had in Korea, so it was nostalgic.

I wandered around some more before going to the Haeundae sand festival. A lot of people gathered to see some impressive sculptures made of sand.

The area around Haeundae beach is really pretty, but I saw some ominous low altitude clouds floating towards me.

Anyways, we wanted to rest, so we went to a cafe across the street called Casa Busano. But it was one of the worst coffee’s I’ve ever had, even though it was about 7,000 won. I wouldn’t advise anyone to go there. And I don’t know if they realize that their word sounds extremely close to a slur for Cuban Americans…. hahahah

After some much needed rest, we headed towards Gwangalli Beach. It’s just a beach with a lot of people, but it was really peaceful watching everyone play at the beach. There was a street performer playing guitar and singing Radiohead songs. It’s amazing that he can remember all those songs in English!

We had to wait until 8pm for a drone show that takes place at the beach every week. The theme changes every week and this time it was “America”.

The weather wasn’t great so it was hard to see. It was mostly American football and hip hop images.

We finally got back to our hotel and ate dinner around 9 pm… At a fancy Western restaurant called “just chilling.”

The next day we stayed in a little late and had milmyeong for lunch. It’s a specialty in Busan and involves some kind of aged fish in the sauce.

Today we are going to Haedongyonggung temple. It’s said to be the most beautiful temple in Korea.

Actually, I didn’t want to go that much because it’s supposed to be always packed with people. Being really loud and busy ruins the atmosphere for me, but it’s great for the temple which gets to make a lot of money ^ ^

But despite there being a lot of people, I’m glad I went, because it is certainly very pretty.

We made a stop at a fishery museum and a rooftop cafe before going to our last stop, Jalgalchi market.

You can buy fish, usually for eating raw very fresh at the market. They slaughter it right after you pay for it so it’s good for eating raw.

I don’t know why it’s just the fish market, but if you’ve ever been to one you know how aggressive the salespeople are. They will shout at you as you pass to come and buy from them.

But at Jalgalchi, they are less aggressive because they know I’m a tourist and probably won’t buy it.

Finally for dinner we had Godeungo (?) in Korean or Saba in Japanese. It was great! And the older guy sitting next to me was very interested in me.

Koreans like to compliment as small talk and one of the common compliments is “You eat well.”

I think a lot of foreigners in Korea are picky, so they are happy to see a foreigner eating normally.

But actually, Saba is hard for me to eat because you have to separate it with chopsticks and there’s small bones, so he showed me how.

Anyways, after that it was time to go home ㅠㅠ

After a long train ride, finally home at 11pm… And off to work the next day.