Friday night was an international student trip to Gyeong Ju. Yes, I was there last weekend but this experience was a little bit different. First stop was traditional fan making. I'm not the most artsy person anymore but I definitely enjoyed getting in touch with my childhood roots, playing with paper and gluesticks. There was on
e instructor per three or four people who helped to show us the correct way of decorating the fans. The sample we had was of four flowers and leaves, all connected by a vine. The kicker though is that the designs were made of ripped paper, no scissors. I decided to use the sample as my inspiration just with color changes and five flowers instead of four. Let me tell you, making flower petals actually look like flower petals by ripping paper is easier said then done. Some were too small, large, round, square, never just right. My instructor didn't laugh at me too much, instead she offered her assistance (that is her in the picture holding my completed fan). In my personal opinion, my fan didn't turn out that badly. It might even be considered kind of good...good enough to give Mom as a gift? I completed the fan with my name written in Korean on the bottom and the date.Next stop was a traditional Korean dinner. It wasn't my favorite meal I have had so fa
r. Something about eating just rice, no meat, with some random things thrown in (most of which I can not accurately identify) is not a completely satisfying meal for me. Again we sat on the floor, but the atmosphere was nice and it feels great to be immersed in a culture so different from mine.Our final stop was another temple (what Gyeong Ju is known for). This one was my favorite by far. Maybe it was the fact that it was night time and the lights beautifully illuminated the temples, but something about it was so peaceful. There was relaxing Korean music playing, people were very quiet, and it was easy to take in the sites and imagine what it would have been like hundreds of years ago when everything was in its original form.
Busan
Saturday morning, a Scottish guy named Callum, a Spanish guy named Enaut, and me, left Pohang for Busan, only an hour and a half bus ride away. Many more people were supposed to come but for various reasons couldn't at the last minute. No big deal though, we still had a great time. Getting to Pohang bus station wasn't too difficult and neither was finding the correct bus to get to Busan. Once in Busan, though, we sought to find the subway (first destination-beach). This task was fairly difficult in that every sign in the entire station was in Korean. Luckily we were able to find someone at an information kiosk who pointed us in the right direction. We made it successfully to the automated ticket machines, challenge number two. You could change the language to English, which was very lucky for us, but then it was a matter of figuring out what line we needed to take and what station we needed to get off at. We pointed on a map to our desired destination, and a nearby employee hit a couple of buttons, I put in the money, and out popped my ticket. The nice man showed us down the stairs to the subway tracks where we managed to get on the train going the right direction. We were sitting on the train for a few stops when I realized that the stop names were not corresponding with the map I had in my hands. Turns out, we were on a completely different line then we thought we were on because we started at a different station then we thought we did. That's what happens when everything is in Korean. To make a long story short we had to change trains twice before arriving at our destination...Haeundae Beach.
Haeundae Beach
Haeundae Beach is the largest beach in all of Korea at a whopping 2 km. I don't really think that is exceptionally lar
ge but I guess for Korean standards... We were greeted with the site of hundreds of various colored umbrellas and of course standard American food chains like Starbucks and TGIFridays. The western restaurants tend to be located near the extremely touristy sites. Apparently, Koreans are very conservative at the beach. Very few wear bathing suits and no one lays out in the sun...thus the umbrellas. The best though, is that they go in the ocean fully clothed. I'm talking jean shorts and a tee-shirt. Needless to say, when I refused an umbrella, spread my towel on the sand, and stripped down to a bikini, I got a few stares. I read in a guide book that a ton of westerners come to the beach and sport bathing suits so it was okay if I did. The two guys I was with don't enjoy relaxing on the beach (can't imagine why) so they went for a walk instead. As I was 
laying there, getting the only sun I have seen since end of summer in Australia, three Korean boys come up to me and ask if I would take a picture with them. Of course, I oblige, and as they are leaving, one of them says to me, "you are so beautiful". Clearly that is the reason they wanted the picture, not because I was on the only non-Korean on the beach or anything... Later he came over again and offered watermelon!After a couple hours on the beach, and some serious sunburn later, we made our way into the city in an attempt to find our hostel. I had the address written down, but of course it made no sense to any of us. We found an information station with some employees who spoke English. They were able to tell us how to get in the general vicinity of our hostel which was great seeing as we had no idea which direction to head before that. After 45 minutes on a bus, we got off in front of a church (our landmark according to the information people) but didn't have a clue as to where our hostel was from there. We asked a lady on the street who managed to point us in the right direction. We walk into this complex of high rise buildings (Korea is full of these complexes due to the high population, small livable land ratio). The "building number" written on my address sheet was 106 so we wandered over to that building. We apparently looked confused (maybe because hostels usually aren't located in high rise buildings) because a woman walking into the same building beckoned us to follow her. She seemed to know why we were there. We got off at the 18th floor and knocked on an apartment door. There was a sign that said backpackers so we knew we were in the right place. The man who answered the door, directed us to an apartment on the 13th floor which had been converted into a small hostel that slept about twelve. The three of us had our own room which was composed of two sets of bunk beds and was exceptionally clean. We had a wonderful view, and I have to say that of all the hostels I've stayed in recent months, this is definitely one of my favorites.
Once showered and changed, we made our way towards downtown. First stop - fish market. I have been in fish markets before, but not quite like this one. Besides the very strong fish stench, there were skinned but still alive fish wriggling around, out of water, in bins. It seemed pretty inhumane to me. On top of the skinned fish, there were buckets of fish heads sitting around everywhere, and women were chopping their heads off right in the open as we walked by. There were types of fish and non-fish in tanks that I've never seen before...snails, grub looking things, huge crustaceans, etc. Each fish stand had a restaurant of sorts set up in th
e back where they served their own catch. Callum decided that we should eat in one of these places. Despite the smell and the feeling I had in my stomach, I agreed and we sat, traditionally, on the floor. The menu was in Korean so we pointed to what looked like sashimi (raw fish) and a few minutes later she brought a plate of it with various other Korean dishes. In Australia I had developed a taste for sushi, so sashimi was not much different. Just sushi without the rice, veggies, and seaweed. Just the raw fish. Dip it in soy sauce and wasabi and it is actually very tasty. Korean meals always come with soup, no exceptions, so of course when the woman placed a bowl of soup on our table, I investigated. There seemed to be a large mass of sorts in the soup, so I poked at it a little with a chopstick to help identify it. All of a sudden the mass flips over, and a fish eye is staring at me. Well needless to say, I didn't eat soup that night.After our fish market experience we walked around the city for awhile. We manged to stumble upon an area with a ton of lights, stands selling food in the middle of the streets, western restaurants, bars, etc. It seemed to be one of the main entertainment areas in Busan. We wandered around there for awhile, stopping for some Baskin Robbins ice cream (!!!). Callum wanted to check out the Busan tower in the worst way so we made our way to the large white monument visible from most places in the city. Up a giant hill we went to the base of the tower. It was pretty with the lights of the city reflecting onto it and the view was great. Callum and Enaut decided to go to the top while I opted to wander around the bottom and check out the sites. This area seemed to be popular for couples and those looking for a quiet drink or ice cream. I sat on a bench overlooking the city when this feeling came over me. I realized that in t
hat moment, I was so lonely, yet so happily inside of my own head. I was sitting there trying to listen to other peoples conversations as you often do when you are by yourself. Unfortunately, not one couple was speaking in English. So not only was I physically alone, I couldn't understand what anyone was saying either. This made me realize how truly out of my element I am in Korea. It is definitely a wonderful experience to step outside of your comfort zone and try to conquer a language you do not understand and communicate with people who do not understand you. However, in that moment, at the base of the Busan tower, I felt extremely lonely. Some people enjoy that feeling because you are so within your own head that it doesn't matter how physically alone you are. But for me, it was not a feeling that I enjoyed very much, I'd rather have someone there that I care about to share the moments with me. I respect those who can travel on their own for months at a time meeting people as they go along. I could do that for a period of time but eventually would long for the company of someone familiar.After the Busan tower we stopped in a bar for a drink then made our way back to the hostel. It has been a long day as we left Pohang pretty early that morning. The next day, after meeting some of our fellow hostel stayers and enjoying a breakfast of toast and jam, we made our way back towards the bus stat
ion on the subway to head back to Pohang. On the way, we stopped at one of the most famous temples in Busan called Beomeosa. This was definitely the largest temple I have seen so far and it was really beautiful. It was an active temple in that there are monks that live there. Don't get me wrong, temples are amazing and I love seeing them, but once you've seen a couple, you've seen them all. They are very spiritual places for many Buddhist visit
ors, and I experienced a little bit of that, but I can understand how these places mean more to them then they do to me. Just as a visit to Washington DC or historic Philadelphia means a great deal to me, while foreign visitors just take it for what it is. After exploring the premises for awhile, Enaut and Callum decided to hike to the fortress walls which was about 30 minutes uphill. If had sneakers with me then I definitely would be up for the hike but I was wearing flip-flops and decided it wasn't best for me to try it anyway. I took the bus back down the mountain to the town center alone and when I arrived I needed to figure out which bus took me to Busan central bus terminal. I pointed on my map to where I needed to go to an employee and he politely showed me to the correct bus. Two bus rides and a cab ride later I was back in my dorm at POSTECH. I finally got to put my extensive Korean to use in the cab...Pohang coundee kitusa...or Pohang University Dormitories.Back to lab this week...but next weekend is the Pohang light festival!
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