How do these travel related posts go anyway? In my quest to document the more exciting parts of my life in pictures, I have accumulated a little more than 500 photos at the end of our 10 day trip. O.O I'll try my best to arrange them in chronological order and hopefully, it'll all come together and make sense.
Here it goes!
Here it goes!
A little back story that would explain the bottom right photo.
Our plan was to take a train up to Busan the moment we landed in Seoul. We had already booked the KTX train tickets online in advance, but little did we know that the KTX tickets work in a you-reserve-a-ticket-but-not-a-seat way. You could imagine our faces when the lady at the counter told us that they ran out of appointed seats. We were given the options of either standing throughout the train journey, or hopefully be able to score ourselves seats in the free-seating cabins.
Me: Okay so when we board the train right, we must immediately search for seats. You'll find the seats, and I'll put our stuff in the luggage department.
Hui: Okay can!
I don't know why I confidently assumed that there was a luggage department. The only storage compartment available was the overhead one, and I wasn't about to transform into she-hulk (or break my neck) trying to carry 10+kg worth of luggage above my head.
So as you can see, we resigned to stuffing our luggage in our leg space, climb on top of our actual seats, and sit awkwardly cross-legged throughout the train ride. Huihui's leg was stuck between the two luggage for the first 30 minutes because we scrambled to our seats and the fully packed cabin gave us no chance to adjust our positions.
Hui: *whispers* 我的脚开始麻了。
Me: *laughs uncontrollably in a very packed but silent cabin*
May I add that my head was uncomfortably close to a soldier's groin area for the first part of the train ride? Hahaha, it was an interesting start to our trip to say the least.
So, after much trouble and worry, we finally arrived at our hostel in Busan. We were super glad that we did because the all the travelling had left us hungry and tired and we just wanted to lay down and rest. But...our accommodation at Busan was a little disappointing la. The area we were staying at was surrounded by love motels, the air-conditioning in our room was out, and the bathroom had a window that looks into a secret passage way in the wall. Not exactly the kind of assurance you are looking for when bathing.
But we were too tired to care at that point. We bought brownies from the convenience store and ate them as dinner, washed up, and crashed immediately.
Onward with the second day! We woke up pretty early, ate whatever's left from dinner, and made our way to the first sightseeing location.
Hui: Is this the bus stop?
Me: Should be ah, I don't see any other bus stops near by.
Hui: Should be la hor? Haha, we just anyhow whack okay.
Lol and that was our motto for the remainder of our trip. We board the bus without confirming if it went in the right direction, assumed that the two other Korean girls carrying a DSLR were heading to the same location as us, tried to match the Korean words on our itinerary to the bus signage, and surprisingly, reached our first destination without getting lost!
The temple is beauuuuutiful. The sea breeze that feels like air-conditioning, the bright sun that didn't scorch, and the very scenic view of the ocean makes for an absolutely stunning location. The photos really don't do the temple any justice.
Since we only had one full day to explore Busan, we gotta hustle from one location to another if we wanted to complete our itinerary. We left the temple and took the same bus in the opposite direction back to Haeundae Station, and headed over to Dong-baek Island.
Dong-baek Island has one of the best views of Busan, and the building above is the APEC conference hall where the international summit was held. To be honest there was nothing much to do there, but the view! The view was absolutely amazing. Since it was by the sea, we got to enjoy more of the wonderful sea breeze throughout our little trek around the island.
Also, because the sea-breeze felt like air-conditioning, we didn't realise that we got sun burnt until we got back to the hostel. >:(
Headed to Jagalchi Fish Market next for our dinner. We picked out a live fish to be sliced into sashimi (or 회, hoe, as the locals call it), and ordered ourselves a big pot of seafood soup. I don't fancy raw fish all that much, but god damn does fresh fish taste good. This particular fish tasted like chewy sweet shrimp, and it tasted even better when cooked in the boiling seafood soup. Ah! The soup was brimming with fresh seafood ranging from crabs to mussels to clams to prawns to octopus. It was ~heavenly~ and we stuffed ourselves silly with seafood.
Our original plan was to head over to BIFF Square after Jagalchi, but we were so tired from all the walking and eating that we decided to just visit the area beside the fish market instead.
Now, remember when I said that we had a ton of sheer luck?
Me: Holy crap look at that sign.
Hui: What where? Oh my god. We are at BIFF Square!
We found ourselves at the square by eliminating it from our agenda. What luck! BIFF square was mostly filled with street food stalls, and since we were stuffed, we just walked around and soaked in the locals' energies. Well, until we saw a very long line of people queuing for hotteok. We had tried one earlier in the day at the temple, but we just couldn't resist queuing for it. Long line = good food, right? This version of hotteok tastes a little more savoury than sweet, and was filled with sunflower seeds. Really yummy!
Ending our last leg of exploring Busan with Busan Aquarium. We reached there 2 hours before closing time and got to explore it without squeezing with hoards of tourists. I haven't been to one since I was a child, so I was quite excited! A few things that I would like to mention.
1) The underside of a stingray looks like a cutesy smiley face.
2) Frogs/toads still freak me out despite being enclosed and under flattering lighting.
3) The all elusive lionfish. All I could think of when I saw it was which Schmidt screaming "Ahhh!!! Pee on my face!!!". One of the funniest episode of New Girl and you are a cool person if you could relate to what I just said.
Walked back to our hostel from the aquarium when we were greeted with Korean boys sprinting across streets and screaming their heads off. Apparently there was a Girl's Day pop-up performance near where we stayed. We attempted to squeeze in with the boys to catch a glimpse of of the performance but that lasted for about 5 seconds before we gave up. It was a very enthusiastic crowd.
So that concludes days 1 and 2 of Korea. More to come and hopefully I will be able to stick to my agenda of penning them all down before I procrastinate it past it's expiration date.
xx
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