Busan

I'm back from Busan and I had a great weekend. When I got into Busan I had to find a place to stay, after checking a backpackers hotel I was informed that I probably won't find any hostels with vacancy because of the holiday weekend. So instead of riding the subway forever, I called the places in my Lonely Planet. I found a place right next to the train station for 40,000W a night. A bit more than I wanted to spend, but still way cheaper than most places and I had my own bathroom. I was far from the beach, but that wasn't a big deal, it still only took about 45 minutes by subway. The hotel was nice, had a coffee shop on the first floor, the staff spoke
English and were helpful with any questions. Also, it was nice being able to sleep until 10:30 and still catch the train this morning. After I settled into the hotel I decided to head to Gwangalli beach to take in the sights and sounds of coastal Busan. This beach is not nearly as crowded as Haeundae beach, but there were still a lot of people on the beach and in th water. I stayed there until nightfall because Lonely Planet said it sparkled at night when all the buildings were lit up and the concrete diminished.
On Saturday I decided to check out Beomeosa Temple. I had to ride the subway for an hour and then catch a bus to the top of the mountain. The view was absolutely gorgeous. When the bus got the the top I still had a climb ahead of me and my new Birkenstocks weren't the best shoes to be wearing. The climb was magnificent, I could hear the stream roaring down the mountain and birds chirping. It was probably the most peaceful thing I have ever experienced. The temple itself was beautiful, pretty much un-restored and left to its natural beauty. A lot of the buildings housed Buddha statues, candles lit up the rooms and it was intriguing to watch the men and women kneeling and bowing before the golden statues. I wanted to take a picture, but out of respect, I refrained. However, I did take multiple pictures of the temple and the surroundings.

I also went to Haeundae beach on Saturday. This place was filled with people. It is apparently Korea's number one beach, but with all the people I don't know how it could even come close to being relaxing. I opted to walk around for a bit and take pictures. I found a market and I bought some rather disgusting corn on the cob and a surprisingly delicious pork skewer from a street stall. I saw all sorts of sea creatures for sale, some dead, some dried and some still squirming about. The thing about seafood restaurants here is that you can pick which creature you want to eat. Most restaurants have large tanks outside filled with crab, fish, eel and all sorts of unidentifiable things. On Gwangalli beach the predominant creature was crab on Haeundae it was eel. I decided on the pork mentioned previously.

The train ride was nice, not too long, and it provided a view of life outside of Seoul. The countryside is gorgeous and full of hills and mountains. Rice paddies and greenhouses dot the landscape and farmers wearing big straw hats work in the fields. People were fishing in the streams and rivers and life without high rises seemed simple and native. It was nice to see traditional Korean homes from a distance and simple streets and green everywhere. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of this, but when I venture outside of Seoul again, I will try to take some. I have more pictures from the Busan trip on Facebook and more will be posted to Flickr later this evening or tomorrow sometime.