Busan

We decided to have a weekend away from home, which ended up being brilliantly timed as we had teacher in-service days on Thursday and Friday, making it easier to leave school.  Finally - my chance to ride the KTX!!

Mike organised the accommodation, and we took off on Friday evening to Busan - a port city of about 3.5 million down south.  Our idea was to simply visit somewhere new, and have a chance to relax, as it has been 'full-on' at school, with not much time to ourselves during the weeks, and falling exhausted into bed at nights...so - Busan it was!

During the train ride my i-phone rang - during a skype with Matty and Megan nontheless - with a Korean man in halting English trying to check that we were coming to his motel that night. This was my first official Korean phone call - someone needing to communicate with me, and managing to do so after a couple of calls! We got directions to walk to the accommodation as soon as we got off the train, which turned out to be easily achieved. The motel did turn out to be fairly rudimentary, but at backpackers rates, we weren't suprised! At least we had found it.

Next, we headed out to find somewhere to eat. Across the road from the station were several regular franchises, such as 'Tour les jours' where I like to buy my bread, and 'Dunkin Donuts' so we headed that way, expecting to find a few restaurants. We ended up wandering down a street that ran parallel to this one, only discover the bars and hostess places...ahem...then into the Chinatown area. We had had enough walking and Mike was getting toey, so we went into a restaurant that had 'tourist restaurant' above it's doorway. This, in future, will steer us away. Tourist restaurant means tourist prices. We were shocked - W60,000 for a very, very average take-away type meal. Feeling somewhat ripped off, we went back to the Busan Inn via a very nice coffee house, and had a bit of a look at the map and lonely planet guide, only to discover that the lonely planet had warned us away from that particular area as a place that could sometimes have the 'occasional hold-up'!!! Duh.

Saturday dawned, and we decided to take the Busan city tour - we paid W10,000 (NZ$11) and got to see around the city and it's sights, and decided to hop off at an area that looked interesting. This was well worth doing, and we really enjoyed the views.

We had hoped to catch a show that night, so after touring, we called into the info centre at the station, only to discover the one I'd hoped to see (JUMP) was not on any more, so we went to the Busan Cultural Centre to see 'Wind Tone Orchestra' - which turned out to be really enjoyable. Bit of a mission to find it, but we conquered the subway, found the venue, got last minute prices on the seats (W10,000 each instead of W30,000), found a great Korean restaurant (W16,000 for both and much, much nicer than the night before, all faith is restored...!!!) and had a really nice evening.

Sunday we decided to put our gear in a locker at the station then head on the subway up to one of Busan's cultural attractions - Beomosa Temple. This was quite an experience. We were accosted by a keen taxi driver as soon as we got off the subway, but for W4,000 he drove us right up there, and as it was up the top of a reasonably high mountain (well, say, Flagstaff height), we were pleased we hadn't tried to walk! It was a beautiful place to visit, and was in full swing being a Sunday, lots of people up there for worship, being an active Budhist temple, so we were careful about when and where to take photos, but here's a taster...

On the way in our subway ride, we were surprised to see 4 different entrepreneurs try to sell the carriage of people different products, amused to see their different selling techniques, but ended up buying a pair of leggings for winter for W5,000 just so I could say I bought them on the subway train!

Our weekend ended up being just 'what the doctor ordered'!! We've come home refreshed and ready for the next 3 weeks before Christmas holidays - lots to do in that time, but we feel ready to take it on.

I will post some selected Busan photos and put them onto the photograph page this evening, but want to leave with one of those funny coincidences that sometimes occur in life. When we arrived up at the temple site, we were approaching the entrance when I noticed these piles of roof tiles with writing on. I took a closer look, and discovered the very first one on the corner pile next to the pathway had this written on it...so, we had our photo taken - not a bad coincidence eh!!

They even spelled the names the same!!

Blessings to all!
Isabel

November

Autumn has been a very pleasant season, and we have been able to enjoy the outdoors and quite a few events during the last few weeks. The weather has cooled a little, but it is still very pleasant, only really cooling at night time. We haven't turned on the underfloor heating yet, and have only needed to wear jackets a few times.


This weekend we have caught up on ourselves a little as we have found ourselves getting exhausted at work - there's always more to do than what we ever have time for in teaching, and I think more so in an International school! We are certainly working hard, but both find the work very satisfying, and the children we teach are very responsive, and a pleasure to teach.  So, we spent most of Saturday at school doing prep work, but then at 4pm took off to meet friends at the bus stop to head into see the 'Seoul Lantern Festival'.

This annual event happens in downtown Seoul, where the creators of these amazing paper constructions place them on platforms in the stream, and people are shepherded along the streets, zig-zagged back and forth and then allowed down the stairs to walk along the footpaths beside the stream, to be 'wowed' by the sights. We really enjoyed it - along with about 100,000 other people! It was very orderly however, and we were quite impressed when the people on organising duties actually did prevent anyone from stepping out of line, and trying to cut into the next line over. Even the ajima's were prevented from trying this trick!! And, that is saying something, as little old ladies here do have a fair bit of say!

Today, we decided we really needed to have a proper day off, so we slept in, then caught up on some housework, did a bit of baking, and then bussed down to the station to purchase some KTX tickets to Busan - we will have a weekend away on the 25th. We haven't had one for a while, and I think we both need a break. After that we visited a beautiful Chinese garden set in a park a few blocks away from our apartment - I really love the concept of different rooms in a garden. 'Maybe one day'...!!