Well, this is so incredibly behind the times that I barely remember all of the awesome details from our trip. Let me first explain that the radio silence, so to speak, was caused by the death of our old laptop. The motherboard fried and we sent it away to fix, but it turns out if was easier to get a whole new laptop. So among all of the other things we had going on near the end of our time in Korea, hoping that a computer would come in the mail before we left was added to the list.
But since we finally have our computer back, I will have LOADS to catch up on, beginning with our anniversary trip to Busan, which is at the southern end of the Korean peninsula. I think this was pretty much one of the most fun trips we have ever been on! We got a 4-day weekend from work for Buddha's birthday near the end of May, so we headed down bright and early on Saturday morning. We got up at 4:00 am, hopped on a city bus, then the subway to take us to the KTX (express train) terminal. The train would then take about 4 hours but we would arrive just in time to grab breakfast and start our first sailing class! I know we were cutting it a little close, but I gave us an hour of leeway so that we would make it in time.
Well, it started off that I put my foot in my mouth on that one, because we got lost after we got off the train and bussed into the city. But the coolest part about this experience was the opportunity I had to ask a random Korean stranger for directions... in Korean. We met up with an older gentleman (ajusshi) who was really nice and offered to walk us to the marina. He was out exercising, and we ended up talking in Korean for almost 15 minutes! He spoke a little bit of English so it filled in the gaps of what I couldn't say. He's actually gone hiking in Utah, though, which was pretty funny to talk about. I definitely gave myself props for having worked hard the last 6 months to become semi-conversational in Korean, and that encounter really made all the studying worth it :)
Well, even though we were 15 minutes late getting to the marina, we were still able to take our sailboat class as planned. Our guide's name was Chris, and he was really awesome. He's lived in Korea for over 8 years, teaching English and sailing. He's originally Belgian and Italian, but he actually attended Colorado College in our hometown and lived in Boulder for a while - small world! We LOVED learning to sail. Chris gave us a great sailboat intro and then bought us lunch at the absolute best gimbap shop we've ever had - probably in all of Korea. Here are some pictures from the morning session of sailing:
My Korean side is showing :P
This is Chris, our sense. He's awesome. The boat we learned on was a basic 22' Catalina.
We got to sail in this really cool bay close to the financial district. Below you'll see more shots of the iPark and Trump towers (plus a bonus picture of a hottie named Taggart).
This is the marina. Here the guys are hosing down the boat after we got done for the day.
So sunburned and tired from being up since 4am, we headed for our hotel, which was the most amazing hotel ever! Thank you Gary Cooper, you were incredible! This place was the most clean, modern, cheap, and nice hotel I think I've stayed at. They gave you all of these toiletries in a pouch, one for each person. all the lights were operated by remote, and you had a full computer, TV, and king bed (which for Korea is amazing).
The light glows outside the room when it's occupied. Taggart was pretty happy with our pick.
We didn't do much the rest of the day, except recharge and eat at a swanky Korean place for dinner. Oh, but we DID catch up on some episodes of Bones! haha
The next day, we got up bright and early so we had time to get breakfast before our next set of lessons. Per Chris' recommendation, we stopped at this bakery called OPs. Let me tell you, it was ridiculous how good this place was. Especially coming from a year in Korea, where much of the baked goods are sweetened or garlic spiced... to find a real French style bakery with fresh baked croissants and jam and.... oh crap, can we go back now!?!? It was sooo good.
We lucked out a couple of times with some great strong winds to practice with, but during the calm moments, we snapped a few pictures for posterity:
(Of course my foot had to get in there...)
We wrapped up with Chris, and headed to the beach (after returning for more gimbap!). I don't remember the name of this smaller beach, but it was a little quieter, and since it was Buddha's birthday weekend, we wanted to head to a temple later on, and this beach was the closest.
Taggart's new zoom lens meant that we could be creepers on the beach! Though it was fun to see Korean people relax and play, sometimes I've felt as if they're all business, all the time. Though we were surprised to see so many wet suits in summer!
That blue scarf has really served me well, as a beach blanket, pillow, coat, rain guard, etc... I love it!
We explored around the rocky areas of the beach, which took us to a little pagoda.
We hopped up over this partition after climbing on the rocks to get back up to the sidewalk. When I hopped over, I scared the pants off of a little old lady, who was astounded by my "parkour" skills and wanted to make sure I was ok. haha! She didn't seem to care about Taggart.....
Taggart got this great shot of sunset.
We made it to the temple just in time for sunset, with not much to see in between...
This one's for my i-1 class, since we did that huge, long project about the Chinese Zodiac!
Lanterns and people everywhere...
It was getting cold so we warmed up at the top of the temple with some ramyun. It was spicy! :P
It was really neat seeing the transition of the lights as the sun went down.
We saw a May cat! (that's now what we call any cat who looks like ours)
Nice shot, Taggart. ^_^
Then it finally got dark!
The picture here doesn't show how huge this Bodhisattva was, but later keep an eye out, it was big!
The temple was really cool to explore and hang out at. Since it was also oceanside, you could hear waves and ships, but nothing else apart from the chant and bells they had going on. It made me think of how peaceful it would have been at a temple like that way back when...
Our last day in Busan, we decided that we needed more water-related action! So we headed to Gwangalli beach and rented some kayaks. The guy thought that Taggart was too big, so he got stuck with a two-seater, which was stupid, because we know he would have been fine in one that was my sized. We didn't get pictures in the boats, which has since prompted many waterproof camera discussions, don't you worry. But it was really fun to kayak around the same (almost) stretch of bay that we sailed in! Here's some pictures of the beach at Gwangalli (I didn't get many shots of Haeundae, but we went there as well, and got OPs bakery goods for the 2nd day in a row):
Those are the same towers from before, remember?
We ate lunch at a different burger stand, but couldn't resist snapping photos and getting milkshakes later at this restaurant. How hilarious is it? :) And they had flags EVERYWHERE, with really no gimmick other than that. They didn't even serve poutine...
It was such a relaxing afternoon and we didn't want it to end. Finally we headed to the train station, where... we had MISSED our time! I guess I had mixed up our departure time from the trip TO Busan, not FROM, and since they were so close, we missed it. We were bummed... since by that time it was the end of the weekend, a lot of people were also trying to get into Seoul, so the place was packed. We got standing room only on a train 3 hours later, so we hung out at the station for a while, and then made a long trip back, much later than we expected... DOH!!!
But Brandon, just for you, we got a picture of Taggart chillin' by the tracks, to honor the Transcontinental adventure and keep its spirit alive...
We had a great trip - what a way to celebrate 5 years together! I can't believe we've been married that long, it's crazy. So here's a gushy gross picture of some couple I creeped on at the station.... Barf!
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