Enjoys Long Walks on the Beach and Having Staring Contests With Fish

I spent my last full day in Busan relaxing and enjoying wandering again by myself during the day and meeting up with Alex once she was done with work. First, I wandered the Hyundai area and made my way to Hyundai beach. It is well known for being packed with visitors during the summer, so it was nice to experience it during off-season. Instead of being very hot and crowded, it was a really lovely calm and beautiful day.

The Busan Aquarium is located at Hyuandai Beach, so when I’d spent a sufficient amount of time wandering along, I decided to  go and check out the aquarium. When I was finished there, I hopped on the train and met up with Alex at Gwangalli Beach. We were able to spend a few minutes walking along the water before it started to downpour, so we took shelter in a restaurant where we shared our last dinner together before my departure. Then we had a nice nighttime stroll along the beach before calling it a night.

At Hyuandai Beach: 

At the Busan Aquarium:

At Gwangalli Beach:

Cat Napping in Busan

I recently visited one of my best friends from home, Alex. She is teaching English in Busan, South Korea, because she’s amazing. By a wonderful stroke of good fortune, the flight from Tokyo to Busan is inexpensive. Through less fortunate circumstances, said inexpensive flight departed at 8 in the morning. This meant that I had to be at the airport hours earlier than that, in order to have time to check in and go through security – you know, the whole airport thing. My flight was on a Saturday morning and I have a night class that gets out at 7:20 on Fridays. So after my class I made my trek to the airport, and slept there for the night. Thank goodness that plan worked out and I was able to visit her successfully! That’s the short version of the story there. The longer version involves many train transfers and being kept up for most of the night by an automated voice that never ceases to stop announcing that this escalator goes up to the second floor, and asking you to please be safe, and then thanks you. And then being awoken by security and completely shocking them with my reason for being there. Yeah. Fun stuff.

Alex is beautiful, wonderful, funny, smart and has great taste in best friends from home. I love her so much and it was amazing to be able to visit her due to this remarkable coincidence that wound up with us in such a close proximity to one another whilst making our journeys through this side of the hemisphere. I was overjoyed to reunite with her, and we chatted several hours away, catching up until I became in desperate need of sleep due to the airport scenario I had recently experienced.

After that, we went to a cat café. Now, Japan has cat cafés but I had yet to check one out until now.

Instead of paying for the time spent at a cat café, customers pay for a drink. Then they have however long they so desire to hang out with the cats.

It is wise to keep an eye on your drink.

A wall of cats, ripe for the picking.

There’s a chance that I’m jealous of the fact that people make money from hanging out with their friends and a bunch of cats all day, taking pictures and making drinks. What a good life.

Illustrated instructions on how (not to) behave at the cat café.
Playing with the cats is encouraged as long as you are not mean to them or bothering them!

Good, quality fun.

Taking pictures of the cats is also encouraged.

Which is fantastic. Because I took many, many pictures.

Cat portraits… cat naps… sometimes both in the same picture! Enjoy!

BIFF, Jigalchi Fish Market and Taejongdae Park

After visiting many parks and memorials in the Nampo area of Busan, I made my way through the Gukje Market, BIFF Square and Jagalchi Market to meet up with Alex. We raced the sun and made it to Taejongdae Park before it got dark and ended our night there. Well, really we ended our night with takeout dumplings and a skype dance party with one of our other best friends from home, Amanda. And that was lovely. But pictures from that aren’t quite so lovely or impressive, so enjoy this in lieu of that.

There are many street vendors at Gukje Market

I made my way through BIFF Square, where the Busan International Film Festival is held

Site of the Busan International Film Festival

Jagalchi Fish Market

After Alex and I met up, we raced to Taejondae Park before dark.

 

Photo shout out to New Jersey and its shores and boardwalks. I cannot wait for our reunion.

View from the Taejongdae Park entrance of sun setting over water

Tea Kettle island is a small island that can be viewed from Taejongdae Park

View from Taejongdae Park

Love Locks, Parks and Monuments

During the weekdays that I spent in Busan, South Korea, I had time to myself until around 5 or so, when my friend Alex would get out of work. We’d come up with a train station exit to meet at, and before then, I would be free to roam Busan at my own leisure. Equipped with a map marked with circles and notes, I spent one of my days exploring the Nampo area.

The Lotte Department Store has a scenic viewpoint of the city. This is the view facing towards the city, and looking towards Busan Tower, a watchtower that I made my trek to later in the day.

There are fences at these overviews where couples leave locks to symbolize their love. Often the locks have names, dates and hearts scrawled on them.

 

Bike lock heart – so cute!

View from the top of the Lotte Department Store, facing the sea.

There was also a “zoo” at the top of this department store. There were some pigs and bunnies.

It seemed wrong not to fill you in on that.

After this scouting, I headed towards Busan Tower.

Busan citizens’ bell pavilion

Flower clock

 

(L) statue of General Lee Sunsin (R) Cheongdongyongtap, a statue of a bronze dragon.

Busan Tower is pictured above. The ornate building also pictured houses a museum of musical instruments.

View from Busan Tower overlooking the citizens’ bell pavilion, flower clock, and statue of General Lee Sunsin

View from Busan Tower looking towards the harbor

Men playing a game outside of Busan Tower. There were lots of old men playing this game in Yongdusan Park, where the tower is located.

There were also more love locks attached to fences and benches surrounding Busan Tower.

The picture above is a photo shout out to my sister and brother – 2/26 is our birthday. I love and miss them and was thinking of them when I took this.

After seeing the sights in Yongdusan Park, I took a trip farther north. I hopped in a cab, pointed at a spot on my map that read “Jung-ang Park,” and found myself on a scenic journey up some mountains. I hadn’t been in a car since my arrival to Japan in January, which was an odd realization for me to have.

Jung-ang (or Daecheong) Park turned out to be the location of the Monument to the Loyal Dead, a memorial to those that fought and died in the Korean War.

View from the top of Mount Daecheong

Just a few minutes away from this site is Minju Park Busan, also called Democracy Park.

There are many sculptures and monuments located at Democracy Park.

Kusatsu Onsen

TUJ Student Activities coordinated an overnight trip to Kusatsu, a town that is famous for its onsens (hot springs).
After a long bus ride, we made a stop to see snow monkeys at Jigokudani Monkey Park. If you’re interested in monkeys, check out my pictures from that detour in the post that precedes this one! This post is dedicated the time spent in Kusatsu.

Our room had a beautiful view of the mountains in the distance.

At the hotel, we had an incredible Japanese dinner.

Students got the chance to sing karaoke during dinner as well!

There were traditional rituals performed in the lobby of the hotel that night as well as a taiko drum performance.

  

Of course, there was also a drumming arcade game in the lobby that featured dancing dogs and macaroni. Of course.

The next day, we departed the hotel as a group for a tour of the town of Kusatsu, which is famous for its onsens.

The water at Kusatsu Onsen steams with heat and smells of sulfur.  During our tour, we learned that it is often said that the waters at Kusatsu Onsen have healing powers for any pain… except a broken heart. The waters in onsens vary in color depending on the contents of the water. In Kusatsu, the water has a high sulfur content, which contributes to its green coloration.

Exploring the mountains is a cold task. For warmth, we stuck our hands in a hand onsen. Initially it was a bit painful because of just how hot the water is but once our bodies adjusted we regained our warmth – just what we needed to keep going!

After a long day of exploring the town, we rested and warmed up by dipping our feet in very hot water in an outdoor foot onsen. Feet turn red from spending a bit of time in such hot water, and at first it is a bit painful but again you get used to it.

There was a beautiful outdoor onsen that we were able to visit as well when we were in Kusatsu. It was a nice place to be able to wander, souvenir shop and onsen hop. (There are many free onsens in Kusatsu that one can visit, they are of different sizes and you have to bring your own towel!)

Traditional Arts Workshop and Hanami

One of the events held by TUJ Student Activities was a traditional arts workshop.

Our instructor performed some Japanese music for us. She played the “koto,” which is a traditional Japanese instrument. Among the songs she played was one famous song, which I recognized, “Sakura, Sakura.” 

I had never seen music written like this before, but this is the music she was reading!

When she finished her performance, our instructor introduced us to calligraphy. It is a bit difficult and we spent a bit of time practicing to get the hang of it.

We told her one character that we wanted to write, and then she wrote it out for us with each stroke numbered so that we could follow it as our guide. I asked to write “courage.”

When we’d completed our calligraphy masterpieces, we were given the chance to wear kimonos… dressing in a kimono is a long process and in our case there were two women assigned to the surprisingly demanding task of dressing us.

After we were looking sharper than ever, we relaxed with some snacks and tea. We learned the proper mannerisms for receiving and drinking tea in a ceremony.

Then we were shown the rest of the building. There is gorgeous calligraphy that adorns one of the rooms upstairs, and that was pretty wonderful to marvel in.

During the workshop, we were told what an ideal time it was for “hanami” – which is a word in Japanese that describes going out to spend time appreciating flowers. At this time, the sakura (cherry blossoms) were in full bloom. So we went to Yoyogi Park to take some time to simply enjoy the beauty of it. There were many people out doing the same thing.

There were many groups of people outside, eating and drinking on tarps underneath the branches of cherry blossoms.

There were also performance artists out dancing and making music near the fountains.

Jigokudani Monkey Park

TUJ Student Activities coordinated an overnight trip to Kusatsu, a town that is famous for its onsens (hot springs).
After a long bus ride, we made a stop to see snow monkeys at Jigokudani Monkey Park. If you’re interested in monkeys, this is the post for you. My post that follows this one shares the experience of staying in Kusatsu for a night.

These monkeys are famous because they bathe in onsens for warmth – pretty unique.

If I could turn back time, I would, just to attend this event.