On the Road

So as I mentioned in my last post, last weekend was the Lunar New Year, which for me meant a real four day vacation from my job dancing in front of classrooms full of Korean children. To take advantage of that, I booked myself a roundtrip train ticket and three nights at a hostel in Busan, which is Korea’s second biggest city at around 3.5 million people, and is situated on the Southeastern coastal tip of the country, about as far as you can get from Seoul without getting in the water or passing through a communist dictatorship.

On Sunday morning, tired and terribly sore from hiking the day before, I took the subway to Seoul station on boarded the KTX bound southward. This is Korea’s version of the “bullet train,” and apparently goes as fast as 300 km/hr, so it can get you places in a hurry. The train was very clean and pretty comfortable (although I could have used a little more leg room), and I slept most of the way there. As it turned out, I probably could have gotten away without paying for tickets in either direction; no one ever asked me to look at my ticket, but the train was pretty packed so having a seat reserved was worth it.

The first place I headed was my hostel, Zen Backpackers, to drop off my bag and get my bearings for the city a bit. The place was a little difficult to find, but located in Seoyeon, a very busy neighborhood downtown. There, I met June, the innkeeper of what was basically a converted apartment, and resident spiritual guide and horoscope reader.

I’d actually made up my mind earlier in the day that the first place I would visit in Busan was going to be Hoesimcheong, the biggest jimjilbang (Korean spa) in all of Asia, so that’s where I spent Sunday afternoon/evening. It was my second experience at one of these places, the first being with Howie while he was here visiting in Seoul. That experience was so relaxing that when I read about this place in my guidebook, I knew I had to check it out.

Hoesimcheong is five stories tall and includes in it a huge same-sex spa area with about ten different heated pools, multiple sauna rooms, and even an outdoor pool that I checked out but didn’t spend much time in, on account of the significant shrinkage. There is also a full restaurant, snack bar, work out area, and lounge with big-screen televisions. While the experience involved seeing more naked Korean men than one should ever have to face in a lifetime, it was really, really relaxing, especially for my aching body.

On my way back to the hostel, I stopped and walked around Seoyeon, which by that point in the night was a pretty happening place. I was hungry, so decided to grab some dinner at one of the many food stalls on “food street,” and ended up settling on a couple plates of sundae, which is not ice cream in any form but rather beef intestines stuffed with rice. It might not sound good, but served with a large spoonful of samchang (bean paste sauce) it was really quite delicious.

On Monday, I started out the morning by visiting Beomeosa Temple, which according to the guidebook was the tourist attraction. Afterward, I took the subway to Haeundae Beach, which is the largest and most popular in the city. I’ve seen pictures of the place during the summer, when it gets jammed packed with beach umbrellas and sun-crazed Koreans, but on this day (with the temperate around 40° Fahrenheit) it was much less crowded. I took about an hour and just walked up and down the beach, enjoying the fresh air, the views of the water, and the feel of the sand under my shoes.

At a certain point while I was walking, I stopped to listen to a group of older Korean men who had set up on the boardwalk with a guitar, microphone and speaker, and were singing what seemed to be some Korean classics (based on the old women standing, swaying, and singing along with them in a group nearby). As I did this, one of the men motioned to me, holding out a small paper cup of soju. Not wanting to disrespect him and interested in having a little adventure, I graciously accepted the shot from the man and sat down next to him.

Over the next hour or so, I proceeded to have a long conversation with the man while we drank, and drank, and drank some more. In the end, we’d each downed about a bottle of soju a piece, and our conversation had degraded to smiles, hand gestures, and head nods. The guy was already fairly drunk when I sat down, and while he spoke some English, me going shot for shot with him didn’t particularly assist his linguistic capabilities. Nevertheless, we were able to get along really well, and we spoke about a wide range of topics, from life in America to his time in the Korean army to subjects that I’ll keep reserved for less polite company. I’d say overall I understood about 60% of what he said, with that number dipping as the soju bottles were emptied and tossed to the ground. Still, it was a really enjoyable experience, and I now can finally say that I got drunk with some real ajashis, something I’ve been meaning to do basically since I got here and saw my first Korean man stumbling home in his well-pressed suit.

Su and I made quite the pair, I’d say. We even ended up exchanging numbers, and he called me later that night and was planning to take me out until before his wife got home and apparently ruined the fun. Instead, I grabbed dinner and a beer with Osman, a really nice Greek guy I’d met at the hostel the day before.

On Tuesday, I again went out to get in my last day of touring in Busan. I visited Jagalchi Market, which is a huge, multi-story seafood market right on the water, apparently the biggest in all of Korea. I spent some time watching shoppers haggle for fish and old women skinning sea snakes, then wandered around Gukje, a huge outdoor market just opposite Jagalchi. I even bought a pair of pants, about the second article of clothing I’ve found here that fits me (and that’s only somewhat of an overstatement). Afterward, I walked to Yongdusan Park and took the elevator up into Busan Tower, at the top of which I got a pretty awesome birds-eye view of the whole city.

In the late afternoon, I grabbed a bus from that area to Taejongdae, which is a big park right on the edge of the ocean with an observatory where I got some beautiful pictures of the sun setting behind the rock cliffs above the water. For dinner, I returned to Jagalchi determined to have at least one seafood meal before I left the city. I found a restaurant near the main market, hailed the woman working there, pointed at the tank of eels outside, and then went in to take my seat. I ended up with a sizable feast of vegetables cooked with the eel in a hot sauce that had me sweating profusely from the forehead, reminiscent of my first days in the country.

Before going back to the hostel, I capped off the night with a visit to Gwangalli, another one of the city’s famous beaches. By that time in the night it had gotten pretty cold, but the feeling of the wind on my face, the sound of the waves, and the sight of the city’s nightscape in the distance was a perfect way to bring my vacation to a close.

And there I was, on the KTX early the next morning and back in the classroom by the afternoon. Overall, it was a fantastic long weekend, my first real significant trip in Korea. Busan was a beautiful city, big but with a small town feel. I figured that I’d use this vacation as a feeler for how well I would do travelling on my own, and I think I realized (on the advice of Lorie) that as long as your open to meeting new people and trying new things, travelling on your own can be a really unique, really rewarding experience.