Busan

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. There is no excuse really I've just been lazy.

I went to Busan a few weekends ago with my friend Jasmine from college. Jasmine is a Fulbright teaching English/learning Korean in Iksan, a rural area of Korea. We did a little impromptu down to Busan which is on the southeastern coast of Korea.

There is a big beach called Haeundae that is a big draw of Busan. We took a walk there.

There are big beach umbrella/parasol things everywhere since Koreans hate to tan.

Lots of couples, families, old people on a stroll, too.

It's crazy how developed it is there, right along the beachfront.

The beach connects to a former island, but a land bridge formed between the island and the peninsula over the years so there's a nice walk to the island, too.

rocks on the way we saw

That's a statue out there. It's supposed to be a princess looking towards the sea while waiting for her prince to come home.

cool picture on a light

There was a large building built on the island for some international economic conference held a few years back. They preserved it like a museum.

mother-of-pearl artwork

Bush in hanbok--everyone looks awkward

We also went to a street market. I forgot to take pictures for the most part, but there was a lot of food. Eel is very popular for eating. I saw a guy behead and skin an eel alive, as it continued to writhe around.

Afterwards we went to an international art fair being held in Busan's cultural center. There was some interesting art, including art by a painter called "The Dumb Artist" who apparently refused to sell any of his art for money because that was not the reason for artmaking. His work was being sold for $17 million. I'm guessing he is deceased.

Some of the art I liked:

looks like coral

The next day I woke up real early so went for another stroll on the beach, where it was really foggy.

And foggy in the mountains I saw on my bus ride back up.

Starcraft tournament

Last week I went to a Starcraft tournament, complete with a Pepsi sponsorship and uniforms and moving cameras. I know very little about Starcraft, only from watching my brother play on the computer over his shoulder--never really interested me. But the idea of people wearing uniforms while playing sounded cool so I checked it out. There were free noisemakers. NOISEMAKERS, PEOPLE.

There were super, super loud and rapid talking announcers.

Extremely enthusiastic announcers--like soccer game but more crazy

Each team has two soundproof booths (Each player isn't aware what the other is doing).

The soundproof booth where the players play: left side

Other team's booth

 These people played on teams and the first team to reach four wins won. Each round they would announce a new player, at which point people would scream encouragements and teenage girls threw their panties on stage.

Team I was sitting close to. There were a couple foreigners

Most of the rockstar Starcraft players seemed like they were about 16. These kids don't go to school, all they do is play Starcraft day and night. They live in apartments together and practice against each other for these tournaments. Apparently they get paid really well through sponsorships so their parents are OK with them just playing video games all day.

Stage

It was riveting.

Lil' hike

I took a little hike today. Seoul has a lot of surrounding mountains, easily accessible by subway, and I went to Bukhansan National Park in an outlying area of Seoul.

I had heard about how Koreans like to hike from various references. They weren't kidding. I've never seen such a crowded mountain, though in reference I haven't really been hiking outside NH/VT and rural Virginia.

lunching ladies 

what it looked like lower on the mountain

I'm still not entirely sure where I went today--there were a bunch of mountains in that park and I just kind of wandered and followed people. But the hike started off following a very pretty and clean stream.

I did not climb that mountain but it had a pretty rock face

There were a whole bunch of Buddhist temples in this park--I saw three just on the mountain I went on. Unless all the temples were on that same mountain. A monk strolled past me on my way up.

Temple #1. This one was near the bottom of the mountain and some picnic areas so very crowded.

I continued on the hike and there were some religious(?) markers/totem poles.

 

It got super steep at the pole things. Turns out I was going up the "wrong" side of the trail (other people were going down on my way up). They were like "Wow, this must be hard for you going up," as I huffed and puffed past them.

And then I came across Temple #2. This one was bigger and there were less people, though there was a group of middle aged ladies exclaiming over everything, especially the pregnant dog.

chillin'

I'd never been to a Buddhist temple or any non-Christian worshipping place. It was really beautiful.

Vaguely evangelical sign proclaiming the virtues of Buddhism

Half of this was in Chinese so I couldn't read it but I'm guessing it marks the place

At first I thought this was the temple and was a little disappointed/thought this was what modern Buddhist temples looked like. I am culturally ignorant.

It was foggy

That's another dog, maybe the daddy. I think people live in this building, there were people making sure culturally ignorant people didn't mess stuff up.

Actual temple

The ceiling inside the temple was lined with these lanterns. Pretty

Dragons!

I accidentally went up the "wrong" steps--there were steps in the front but apparently we weren't supposed to go up those. A lady told me off and then led me to the side steps. I asked her if I had to take my shoes off, she looked at me like I was retarded and said yes. It was nice, colorful, shiny gold buddha statues, lots to look at. The instructions said to tiptoe so tiptoe I did.

And I continued.

There were also remains of a fortress on this mountain, and the old stone gateways are still here, including this one.

The sign on the arch says "North Gate"

Place marker by the gateway

Then I continued up to the summit. This is almost to the top, just about above treeline.

And then there were walls from the fortress. They are in such pristine condition that I wonder if the tourism board of Korea rebuilt them?

Arrow holes?

I'mma shoot choo through this hole!

But first I will admire these dogwoods

More!

Giant rock with carved steps.

The guy looking like St. Peter at the top is a random dude on his cell phone. Btw, Seoul has great cell phone reception. No problems at all in the subway either, when I told a Korean you couldn't talk on your phone on the subway in America they were aghast at such a possibility

Finally summit. It was still pretty foggy. It was kind of a sheer drop, I crept along the rocks to take pictures.

Real Koreans aren't afraid of heights. That is a sheer drop of like 100 feet (actually I have no idea, I was too scared to look myself. But it was a drop for sure).

Looking into nothing

High altitude ants

I was trying to show the fog moving in, it was really pretty.

And then I saw Temple #3 on my way back down. A disembodied voice in disguised-rock speakers delivered messages of happiness and stuff.

And I saw these rock piles right after I left the temple so maybe they're religious markers.

And then I ran most of my way down. I hate descents.

It was a nice hike! I'm going to try to go more and maybe leave the city for a weekend to go east or something for some bigger mountains. This hike was about 2 miles and it was super crowded so it'd be nice to get away.