Tour de Korea

It’s Chinese New Year right now, which means I don’t have to work again until Monday. So a few English teachers from my hagwon and two others in Gwangju are taking a five day, three city tour of the country. The first stop on our tour was Busan, which is the second largest city in Korea behind Seoul.

On Wednesday morning, five of us boarded a bus in Gwangju. We expected there to be a lot of traffic because basically the entire country is on holiday right now as well, but we were lucky and didn’t hit any at all. On the way to Busan, we stopped at a rest stop where the vendors were selling everything from illegal DVDs to neon ties, along with a bunch of (mostly glutenous) food options. I bought some roasted potatoes called tong gamja gui that were pretty delicious, and more importantly, didn’t make me sick.

Busan is much more westernized than Gwangju. There are many foreigners living in the city, and a lot more of the locals can speak some English. The city is right on the water, but is also built around several mountains. Gambling is legal in Busan, but not for Koreans…only for foreign nationals. The casino wasn’t very crowded, and we were the only Americans; the other gamblers were mostly Japanese businessmen. There weren’t flashing lights and loads of electronic slot machines making noise, just a few blackjack tables, poker tables, and roulette tables. So it didn’t really feel the same as being in a casino in America. It was almost like we were secretly gambling in somebody’s basement. But we played roulette for a few hours while getting served complimentary drinks. And most of us ended up winning money. Can’t complain.

We stayed with another English teacher, Neil, who taught with some of my friends last year at a public school. Six guys sleeping in a one bedroom apartment is not exactly the definition of comfort.

My favorite place in Busan was Haeundae Beach, which has a boardwalk extending along the beach with many hotels, restaurants, and casinos just off the beach. It felt kind of like Atlantic City, just not as trashy. It’s been much warmer the last couple of days, but it was still only about 50 degrees today. Even so, there were large crowds of people hanging out on the beach and boardwalk. And when I say “hanging out”, I have to point out one Korean dude who took this to the extreme. This guy was wearing a nut-hugger, jumping rope on the boardwalk as if he were in his living room…completely ignoring the cold weather, and general decency. Pretty hilarious if you ask me. He even smiled for the picture. It felt a bit strange to be at the beach wearing a winter coat. Even so, I enjoyed Busan; it had a very different atmosphere from what I’ve experienced so far in Gwangju. I can only imagine how fun the place would be in the summer.

Anyway, we spent a little too much time chilling near the beach, then got stuck in some brutal traffic, and somehow managed to miss our train from Busan to Daegu. Luckily, the trains run every 30 minutes and tickets were still available for a later train. We got into Daegu pretty late, booked some cheap rooms in a "love motel", threw our stuff down and had showers, then went out for the night. Daegu is Korea's third largest city. There are three American Military bases in Daegu, so with soldiers here along with the English teachers, the expat community is significantly bigger than that of Gwangju. The nightlife was pretty fun...it seemed like every bar we were in had a beirut table, and Club Frog was playing late 90s hip-hop. There's a lot of great street food in Daegu, including "pizza in a cup", which I had to enjoy vicariously through my friends. But it looked delicious.

It feels nice to be traveling again, and even nicer to not be teaching for a few days. I was ready for a break from the Korean kids. We're taking a KTX high-speed train to Seoul in a couple of hours, where we'll spend the rest of the weekend. Busan and Daegu have been cool, but I'm pretty excited to get to Seoul, which has the second largest metropolitan area in the world behind Tokyo. Happy Chinese New Year, 春节快乐, etc, etc. And of course, go Packers.