Busan Trip (Day 2)

My second day in Busan was as good as the first with the addition of sunny weather for the most part of the day. I wanted to take advantage of the clear skies for photography, so I headed back toward the APEC house to retrace my steps from the previous day.


My Korean friends living in Busan told me that these are the most expensive apartments in Busan. There's no doubt why. They are new, overlook Haeundae Beach, overlook the bay, and Gwangan Bridge.



I added the top picture to show how the apartments are located in respect to Gwangan Bridge. The lower picture is a close up of the 7,420 meter bridge, longest bridge in Korea.


This is the road that takes you to the APEC House. In this photo, I'm looking back down the road from where I came. Hear are some seagulls resting on a lamp pole. As you can see from the coloration of the road, this is a dangerous lamp to walk under.


Here is an interesting looking tree growing outside of the APEC House.


Here is a shot of the APEC House from an observation platform.


Looking the other way, you can see most of Hauendae Beach.


I found my way back to the beach for sunset. I met some young Korean high school boys while I was sitting there, so I got another chance to practice Korean. I could understand about 20% of what they said because they were speaking really fast and using words I don't know. It was a good chance for practice anyways.


I knew Busan would be a great place to have seafood, so I jumped into a taxi and said I want to eat Jogae-guwee (조개구이). He took me for a 10 minute ride to a great restaurant. This is a blurry photo, but you can get the idea. Basically, you cook shells over charcoal until they are ready to eat.

Busan Trip (Day 1)

I went to Busan in a solo trip over the weekend and had a really good time. I left Seoul Station via KTX high speed train at 7:30am and arrived in Busan at 10:15am. My seat was comfortable but wasn't great for sleeping which I really needed. I didn't go right to bed after work on the 4th because I wanted to have a beer and light fireworks to celebrate American Independence Day and my brother's wedding anniversary. So I was operating on about 3 hours of sleep.

Right outside Busan Station is a Starbucks and in front of Starbucks is a bus to Haeundae Beach, which was my ultimate destination. So I drank 8 shots of espresso and started for the beach.


The weather was a little cloudy. I stood near the middle of the beach faced left and took this photo. I think it is pretty cool that you can see the clouds engulf the peninsula.


Here is the view looking to the right.

I laid out in the sun on my back for just under 40 minutes, but I got a really small sun burn anyway. I didn't use any sunblock, but I really didn't think I'd need any for such a short period of time in the sun on a cloudy day. After about 15 minutes of laying on my stomach I went into the water. I was only in the water for about 5 minutes. It was so cold that I felt dizzy and short of beath. I didn't bother to go back into the water again.


I brought some books to study while on my trip. One was Principles of Language Learning And Teaching, by H. Douglas Brown, and the other was Korean For Foreigners (Intermediate 2), by GANADA Korean Language Institute. While I was sitting on a bench studying Korean, I met these two Korean girls. The one on my right side is Min-ji (민지) an architectual design student, and the other is Hye-lim (혜림) a fashion design student. We talked a bit about my thoughts on Korean architect. I suggested we take a walk to examine the local designs. On our way around, we took a walk around the APEC house. APEC house is a place on a peninsula where the leaders of several nations came for a conference in 2005. The picture above is of us standing in front of a light house in that area.


This is a random couple enjoying a romantic moment in the fog.


I really love the shape of the Korean pine tree you can see in the foreground. The wooden walkway takes you all the way around the peninsula, with many great views to photograph.


Here is Hye-lim again.


Here is Min-ji again.


At the end of our walk, I bought the girls some coffee. Except for our talk about architecture, we spoke Korean the entire time. So this was excellent practice for me. Two cups of coffee is a small price to pay for attractive girls to practice conversation with.


At the end of the evening, I sat down on the beach to do some people watching. I was told that if the weather stays nice, people will be on the beach all night. I wanted to wake up and enjoy a full day, so I didn't stay too long. I found a really dingy motel to stay at for $50. I don't have any photos of it, but I do have photos of my second night's motel which was 1000 times better for the same price. I'll post those photos later.