We stayed at a hostel. I am becoming quite the hostel frequenter. Up until this summer I had never been in one, now I have stayed in too many in so many cities and countries to even count. I love it! People at hostels are always so friendly and we always end up having a good time. Not to mention, the experience is always something different. This hostel was called the Actor and Backpacker hostel. We didn't meet any actors, but that would have been neat. It was a unique hostel because we had to go in a building and walk up 4 flights of stairs. Then we had to walk outside and on to a roof and this was the start of our hostel. The hostel was on top of a roof. It was sooo sweet and had quite the view. The owner, Mr. Lee was very nice and had a cute dog named Cha Cha. They lived there and the hostel was basically his house. Sound familiar to our hostel in Seoul?! :) Caroline and I want to start our own hostel now. Our apartment is pretty big, especially for Korean standards and we could easily put bunk-beds in our living room and rent them out to people. We are currently in the process of finding bunk beds for cheap somewhere. :)
Caroline's family went to their beach house last week and she was sad she couldn't be there, so we decided since we got our first pay check, which was next to nothing because it only had 2 weeks of pay on it plus deductions for insurance and crap, we would spend some of our paycheck on traveling to another city to hangout. Busan is known in all of Korea for its beaches so we figured we would take our own beach holiday.
Before going to the beach though, we spent the first day there shopping at their well known market. We walked up and down many many streets filled with vendors and stores selling every and anything. Neither one of us bought too much but we both did end up with some sweet socks that cost less than a dollar. Also Caroline bought an umbrella and a fan, and I bought a sweet watch for about 4 bucks. I would say we got some pretty sweet deals. This was tons and tons of fun even though we didn't buy much, just Korean shopping is a unique kind of experience and one that I always enjoy.
The next day, we decided to experience the beaches. Because Busan is known for its beaches, it also means that Busan beaches are known to be packed. We definitely found this to be true but it was still really fun and reminded us a little bit of home. There were people absolutely EVERYWHERE. When we first got to the beach, we were immediately approached and asked if we wanted to buy an umbrella, chairs and an intertube. We bought (rented) the umbrella which we realized later was required but decided our towels and the mat they give you would be sufficient and a chair was not necessary. So the way Korean beaches work, or at least in Busan, is that once you rent an umbrella a guy leads you to it and then puts it up for you. There are about 1000 or more umbrellas on the beach all in rows. One umbrella touches the next so there is absolutely no space where there isn't shade. Koreans like the shade and none of them like to layout. This is because Koreans believe the whiter you are, the higher the status because only working people have dark skin from being outside all day. Anyways, so after seeing that all of the umbrellas were touching and there was no sun to be had unless the umbrella remained down, we accepted the fact we would not be sun bathing either. However, the guy who sold us the umbrella I guess realized we wanted to layout so he put us 3 rows back from anybody. This was too funny because if you looked around everyone on the beach was in the first 3 rows, and then there we were the only foreigners on the beach in the 6th row. :) But it was good because we could keep our umbrella down and not bother anyone or force them to be in the sun. You can imagine the stares we got though- more than usual.
After laying out for a little while we became hot and decided to get in the overcrowded water. It was really cold at first so we just waded. Then 2 foreign boys along with their Korean friend who apparently doesn't like Koreans (weird huh) approached us and invited us to sit under their umbrella and talk. We did and what we thought would be a small talk conversation turned into a 2 hour conversation and ended with us being thrown around and tackled in the water by them. It was cold at first but we quickly got used to it and enjoyed swimming, or should I say drowning and being thrown around. :) It was fun though. Oh and a boat or two would drive by every so often to make waves and everyone in the water would ride the waves and get pushed into each other, and as much as this sounds miserable, it was surprisingly really fun. Nobody cared and everyone just kind of accepted the fact that you were going to run in to someone. A smile would then be exchanged followed by laughing at us foreigners and then another wave would come and it would happen again. It was lots of fun. We ended up being at that beach for quite sometime before heading back to the hostel to shower before walking to another closer beach to look at it.
This beach is supposed to be less clean and pretty but also has a better view with a nice bridge in the background. It was a 10 minute walk from our hostel to this beach. It seemed to be about the same as far as it being crowded goes, but the LONG bridge was beautiful and there was a place to walk and places to eat all up and down the beach which we thought was fun. We ate dinner along the beach and then just walked along the beach and enjoyed the Korean beach experience. We stopped to just hangout and sit, but we weren't sitting for even a minute when a Korean guy approached us. He just wanted to talk to foreigners and practice so we talked with him for about 45 minutes, or longer, and then began walking again. We stopped to take several jumpy pictures and pictures of the bridge. then we talked for a bit and watched a cheesy Korean play that was being put on along the beach and then it turned night and we were able to see the bridge all lit up. It was soooo pretty and changed colors every couple of seconds. We both got some great pictures. We talked for a long time just sitting on the beach before heading back to the hostel and passing out! It was a long day but super fun.
We left the next morning, rode the 3 1/2 hours bus home and then just kinda crashed on the couch and hung out for most of the day. It was a great 3 day weekend.
This weekend Caroline and I want to go hiking here in Gwangju since it is known for its great hiking paths on its enormous beautiful mountain. I can't wait!!
I love and miss everyone tons and tons!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment