A weekend in Busan

Since my arrival I’ve been lucky enough to explore not two but three cities. This weekend I jumped on the train from Daegu and headed down to Busan for a couple of days. It is a much larger city than Daegu (maybe twice the size?) and was a little overwhelming at first, but it seems like a pretty good city to be living in! Paul and Cameron have both been set up in pretty sweet apartments – Kevin and I were very jealous! That was another surprise – Kevin arrived from Incheon for the weekend so together with Fatima it was a mini-orientation reunion.

Friday night I arrived on the slow train from Daegu, where Paul met me at the station. We headed out for some dinner at a local restaurant before heading down to Hyundae Beach to meet Fatima and Kevin. The beach is great – very big, and the water was lovely and warm. We ended up getting a few bottles of soju and relaxing on the sand for most of the evening. I was especially excited about the fact there was no mosquitos, and I was able to sit in a dress, sans repellent and not spend the entire evening slapping at my ankles like a mad woman. After much soju was consumed, we made a futile attempt to get into the casino but it was a no-go without our passports (despite Paul’s best drunken efforts to convince them we had lots of money).

Saturday we headed to the seafood markets down near the beach and it was an amazing sight. The seafood was incredible and (for the most part) all still alive! I speak with particular reference to the escaped octopus we saw making an optimistic break for freedom down the street. It was promptly chased down, scolded and slapped by an ‘agima’ (little old lady) and plonked back in its bucket. That was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time! For lunch we headed along to a restaurant, picked out an enormous live crab which was promptly thrown in the steamer, cooked and served up for our lunch. For the crab, a huge array of side dishes and a drink it came to a little under £10 each – not bad, although probably considered expensive by Korean standards!

Saturday night was spent cooking dinner at Cameron’s apartment, where the five of us ate and drank before heading out into the local town to check out a few bars. It turned into a true orientation-style night out, with things winding down at the noribang (karaoke room) at about 3am.

High point – octopus slapping, good company, amazing food
Low point - leaving