Busan is the second biggest city in Korea, and according to many Koreans, a much nicer city than it's big brother, Seoul. It is certainly newer, thriving, and very international as Korean cities go. Being a port city, and the host of the Busan international film festival, there are quite a few tourists, fellow expats, international students and businessmen. It is about a 3 hour drive from Goheung, though depending on which bus you take, it can easily be more like a 4 hour trip. We left early on Saturday, in an attempt to squeeze as much time out of the mini-vacation as we could. Unfortunately, being such an enormous city (the population is almost 3.5 million), even once we finally arrived and stepped off the bus, we were greeted by an hour trip on a very crowded subway just to get to anywhere of interest. We started our afternoon on the Haeundae Beach, a very popular spot among tourists for it's white sandy beaches, surf-able waters, upscale restaurants, and nightlife. As it hovered around freezing temperatures that day, we did not venture down to the water, but wandered the boardwalk, enjoying the view. And what a view it was!
We even got to enjoy a little juggling show!
For dinner we went to the Busan Hard Rock Café, curing our cravings for American food with burgers, mac n' cheese, and cocktails. As it was Christmas Eve, there was a duo on the stage singing Christmas songs in English, which was a lovely, unexpected addition to the evening. The Hard Rock was all decorated for Christmas, and all of the staff we interacted with spoke fluent English. We were even served by one white, seemingly American (based on his accent) waiter, which surprised us given what we know about the difficulty of holding a non-esl job here without Korean citizenship.
The big reason that we landed on Busan as our city of choice for the holiday, aside from the promise of western food, was that due to it's international attraction, it hosts the largest christams tree lights festival in the country, decking out it's streets with lights, selfie zones, charicature drawing, street vendors, and so, so many Christams trees. In researching for the trip, we planned accordingly and booked a guesthouse room in the district that promised the most spectacular display. In fact, we were within a block of some of the most decorated streets in town and enjoyed sipping tea at a café that overlooked the festivities. Families stayed out together until very late, and the young children all had cotton candy in the shape of bears, complete with ears, and little stickers for the eyes and nose.
Though there were plenty of families, it is worth noting that in Korea, Christmas has been adopted as more of a couple's holiday, with lot's of romantic tones. Christmas is not a big holiday in Korea to start with, but as it has recently been adopted and is even now a federal holiday, Koreans have really run with it and put their own romantic spin on it. You may notice that in many of the pictures I've posted thus far, there are a disproportionate number of pairs walking around. There were even a few spots where the romance was pretty overt, with places where couples are encouraged to write love notes in public places among the lights.
Needless to say, we got a late night Christams eve and were beyond exhausted when we finally got to the guesthouse. Thank goodness it was close. Though a complimentary breakfast was included in the cost of the room, we have learned not to expect too much from a Korean complimentary breakfast. Koreans aren't very big into breakfast as a meal in the first place, and even where they adopt a "western" buffet breakfast at hotels, this usually just consists of hard boiled eggs, coffee, and some fruit (which doesn't really cut it when you're as much of a breakfast person as I am). Fortunately, I love planning trips, and I found a café within a few blocks of the guesthouse serving "American style" brunch that sounded promising. Though it wasn't spot on culturally, it more than exceeded our expectations with big portions, variety, and quality. The café was internationally themed with postcards, stamps, maps, and the like. There was even a station where you could write a postcard to your future self, address it, and leave it in their "fly me to the future" mailboxes for them to send back to you at an undetermined time in the future. Pretty neat! We spent at least a couple hours lounging, eating and chatting that Christmas morning and though it wasn't Christmas-y per-se, it was festive in its own right, and, exactly what we needed.
Once we worked up the courage to go back outside, we were pleasantly surprised that it had warmed up to about 10 degrees (celcius of course) and was beautifully sunny. We decided to take a stroll up the hill to a park that boasted the Busan Tower, a sky-needle type tower where visitors can ride the elevator up for a view of the entire city. We knew that Busan was big, but it was still a surprise to see the expanse of the city stretching out in all directions. Afterwards, we wandered the rest of the park, enjoying the traditional buildings and paintings. Beautiful, isn't it?
And that was the extent of our Christmas venture. We had an absolute blast, but needless to say, we will be utterly boring till the winter vacation we've planned for mid-Jan. Next week I'll fill you in on the complexity of the new years holiday here in Korea, and elaborate on Korean-age as well (no, it's not the same as counting the years since you were born). Happy 2017, everyone!-K
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