Busan for Chusok!

So, I'm sure you are all getting a little tired of me going on about the amount of vacation we get here... If you said "Hell yeah!" to that, then you should stop reading right now.

Chusok is South Korea's Thanksgiving... the only difference is that it runs for almost an entire week! We, of course, took full advantage of this and took a 5 hour bus ride to Busan (35° 9'37.18"N 129° 9'34.64"E) with our awesome friends; Hugh and Anoushka. The Motel Hugh had so daftly chosen was in Haeundae beach, right across from the Busan Aquarium, and a block from a complex that housed all the western food you could think of. That guy is a lot smarter than he looks!

Unlike the concrete jungle that is Seoul, Busan definitely has an international, dare I say, "liveable" flavour to it. With 8 million people and a port that is vying to be the new hub for north Asia, Busan blends Western ammenities with parks, beaches, tourist attractions and comparably interesting architecture, all in a seemingly reasonably sized city. Many of these things aren't readily found in the vast barracks' that encompass Seoul's 21 million people. They do both have amazing shopping, though, because, like we've noticed in the rest of Asia, Koreans LOVE to shop.

In our 4 day trip (2 of those were travel days - 4.5 hour bus trips), we visited the Busan Aquarium, walked Haeundae beach 3 times, took pictures of the Gwangan Bridge from the 2005 APEC conference site, toured the Beomeosa Budist Temple, walked the fish market, moseyed the "40 steps" heritige site, and gorged every night at western style restaurants (The Outback!!!).

One of the highlights of the trip for Hugh and I, was an unexpected hibrid greeting from a middle-aged Korean: "Have a nice day-hamnida". The charm and unexpected warmth of his smooth blend of the two greetings made us both do a double take. Our excessive "Thank you"s and "Kamsamnida"s couldn't have done it justice... But I guess you have to be a foreigner in Korea to appreciate how rare this comment was.

We got home late Sunday night, again happy and tired! Here are our pictures from the fantastic week!

And it starts (Vacation Part 1)

Even though our flight to Singapore wasn't until the 8th, we had decided to head to Seoul 3 days early to vacation before the vacation.

The 8:30 train to Seoul came SO early, but we were both excited to get going. In her incredible wisdom, Steph had pre-booked a Motel (The Jeon Poong Hotel - sweet name 37°33'36.68"N 127° 2'1.85"E) that sat right on two subway lines and kitty-corner to an Outback steakhouse and a Fat-Donalds!

The three days in Seoul were jammed with tons of subwaying and walking. We walked Itaewon, the "foreigner" section of Seoul, where you can find all the international amennities as well as clothing sizes thanks to the 24,000 member American army base located close by. There definitely was "dark" feel to the place, highlighted by the multitude of unfriendly faces and a gloomy walk up "Hooker hill". I don't think "seedy" is too strong a word. Shortly after arriving, we left Itaewon for Dongdaemun; the shopping district.

To our suprise, we found an amazing "urban river" path that ran from Dongdaemun back to our hotel (although it did take a couple of hours). Cheonggyecheon, in 1968, was completely covered by an elevated highway into the city. In 2003, the highway was removed in a uniquely responsible moveby the city of Seoul, and the river was rehabilitated into a social asset. It was extremely nice, with tons of people using it, not to mention the countless condo projects being built along its sides.

Day 2 found us at the biggest mall in Seoul; the COEX. I've never seen so many people... and such an example of consumerism. Go economy, Go! Close by, the Trade Tower and the Buddist temple - Bongeunsa took up most of the afternoon. It was an interesting sight to see the city's center of commerse and business sitting across the road from the most peaceful of temples. We finished the evening off with a picnic at Ttukseam resort on the Han river. Thousands of people were using the parkland on this, and most nights this summer. Since most people don't have air conditioning and the temperature was 30C with 85% humidity, many people come out at dusk to sit by the river. Some camped out all night, with or without a tent (Korea is still great for camping absolutely anywhere).

Day 3 proved to us that even though the subway system is great in Seoul, the urban sprawl makes everything tough to get to. We checked out the World cup stadium and adjacent parks, which were really nice, but super under-utilized probably because they were so remote, and because Koreans don't really care for the sun. We swung back to the Korean War museum as an after-thought, which turned out to be a great move!
On the monument seen below was this passage:


Monument in Remembrance of the Korean War
The tragedy of the Korean War, which began early in the morning of June 25, 1950 with North Korea's illegal invasion of the South, resulted in over 4 million casulties, 10 million dispersed family members, and US$23 billion in property damage across the nation.
The Republic of Korea, along with the UN forces from 21 different nations, fought at the risk of their lives in order to protect democracy and national peace. The war lasted 3 years, 1 month and 2 days, and the Armistice Agreement was signed on July 27, 1953. [...]
In this spirit, as we commemorate the tragedy of the war, we erect this war monument in order to pay tribute to those sacrificed their lives and to leave the eternal peace to our sons and daughters with the hope and promise of the unification of the nation.
The monuments were breathtaking. Around the War museum, was a slew of military equipment used in the war... perfect for two oversized children (us) to play in. We finished the night with dinner at the Yongsan station, knowing that in 8 hours we would be back there, catching a bus to Incheon airport, and our plane out of Korea.