I plan on posting more about my Vietnam trip in detail soon. Until then, these are my links to the Facebook albums. Be forewarned, there are a lot of pictures! They should be visible to everyone, even if you don't have Facebook. If there are problems, please let me know!
First/Finally~Sài Gòn
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2288981&id=59501140
Second/Third- Cu Chi Tunnels and Mekong Delta
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2289003&id=59501140
Fourth, Mũi Né
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2289016&id=59501140
Fifth, Đà Lạt
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2289024&id=59501140
Fifth, Đà Lạt Part 2
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2289034&id=59501140
Sixth, Nha Trang
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2289037&id=59501140
Showing posts with label beach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beach. Show all posts
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Monday, June 7, 2010
Haeundae Sand Festival (해운대해수욕장)
This past weekend, I was lucky enough to go to the Haeundae Sand Festival. 해운대해수욕장 (Haeundae Beach) is the most famous beach in the country. It's located in Busan, and is about 1.5 km long.
Haeundae Beach is incredibly popular during the hot summer months, and is known for it's numerous beach umbrellas.
I spent the weekend with my friend Neil, who visits Gwangju quite often. He's got an amazing apartment (albeit small) at Minam Station, in central Busan. It was good to see him. This is a view from his helipad atop the 27th story early Saturday morning:
We went out for lunch the day of the sand festival at a local burger joint, Burts Breeze, very close to the beach. It's been about 9 months since I'd had a good burger, and this one came loaded! It was impossibly huge to take a bite of.
Here are some pictures from the sand festival and my captions below:
Ajuma's practicing safe sun.
Lot's of Koreans don't have swimming suits, so they just wear their clothes.
We didn't realize how cold the water was until we got our feet wet!
Pretty impressive! This was at the main entrance to the beach.
These sand sculptures were pretty big and it was neat to see them still sculpting them. Wonder how long they last...
For more pictures, check out: http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=2208360&id=59501140
Haeundae Beach is incredibly popular during the hot summer months, and is known for it's numerous beach umbrellas.
I spent the weekend with my friend Neil, who visits Gwangju quite often. He's got an amazing apartment (albeit small) at Minam Station, in central Busan. It was good to see him. This is a view from his helipad atop the 27th story early Saturday morning:
We went out for lunch the day of the sand festival at a local burger joint, Burts Breeze, very close to the beach. It's been about 9 months since I'd had a good burger, and this one came loaded! It was impossibly huge to take a bite of.
Here are some pictures from the sand festival and my captions below:
Ajuma's practicing safe sun.
Lot's of Koreans don't have swimming suits, so they just wear their clothes.
We didn't realize how cold the water was until we got our feet wet!
Pretty impressive! This was at the main entrance to the beach.
These sand sculptures were pretty big and it was neat to see them still sculpting them. Wonder how long they last...
For more pictures, check out: http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=2208360&id=59501140
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Malaysia Day 5
I spent most of day riding on the motorbike my hotel hooked me up with. It cost about $30 for two days, which is a ton less than taking taxi's all around the island. I put two liters of gas in, and that cost about $1.50, so pretty good.
Once I got used to the bike, I rode up to Telga Harbor Park, which was so beautiful. It was windy but the bright blue water made up for it.
There was also the prettiest hotel on the bay, called Berjaya Langkawi Beach Resort. I would have loved to have stayed here, too bad the room rates were through the roof!
Later on, I cruised up to the cable car and oriental village. I was excited to see this so called Oriental village. To me, it looked like something you'd find in Disneyworld.
I had to wait about 2 hours to get up to the top, by the time I waited to stand in line and then stand in line and take the car up. I was lucky and met 4 fun Malayan young adults my age. We rode up together and hung around up top. Once we got to the top, the view was incredible! It was hard to tell where the water stopped and the sky began, it was all the same blue color. There was a rumor about it being cold up on the top, but it was still really hot! Here are the guys I met:
This is what part of the island and mountains look like:
Here's a view of the water and sky:
After taking numerous pictures, I got back on to the road and went to some beaches. I had to stop a few times to look at the monkey's sitting on the side of the road:
I relaxed on an almost-deserted beach, Tanjung Rhu. There are three small islands that you can walk to on the sandbar during low tide. I did that and as I was walking, I saw a gorgeous sunset. Here I am on the sandbar on the way back from the smaller islands.
I did a lot today, and had an awesome time on the motorbike. On the way back to the hotel, I got it up to 80 kph on the freeway. I'd love to have one of those back home!
Once I got used to the bike, I rode up to Telga Harbor Park, which was so beautiful. It was windy but the bright blue water made up for it.
There was also the prettiest hotel on the bay, called Berjaya Langkawi Beach Resort. I would have loved to have stayed here, too bad the room rates were through the roof!
Later on, I cruised up to the cable car and oriental village. I was excited to see this so called Oriental village. To me, it looked like something you'd find in Disneyworld.
I had to wait about 2 hours to get up to the top, by the time I waited to stand in line and then stand in line and take the car up. I was lucky and met 4 fun Malayan young adults my age. We rode up together and hung around up top. Once we got to the top, the view was incredible! It was hard to tell where the water stopped and the sky began, it was all the same blue color. There was a rumor about it being cold up on the top, but it was still really hot! Here are the guys I met:
This is what part of the island and mountains look like:
Here's a view of the water and sky:
After taking numerous pictures, I got back on to the road and went to some beaches. I had to stop a few times to look at the monkey's sitting on the side of the road:
I relaxed on an almost-deserted beach, Tanjung Rhu. There are three small islands that you can walk to on the sandbar during low tide. I did that and as I was walking, I saw a gorgeous sunset. Here I am on the sandbar on the way back from the smaller islands.
I did a lot today, and had an awesome time on the motorbike. On the way back to the hotel, I got it up to 80 kph on the freeway. I'd love to have one of those back home!
Monday, February 22, 2010
Malaysia Trip Day 3- The rest of the day
So we eventually made it to Kuala Perlis around 9 am. After buying ferry tickets at the jetty, we had an hour and a half to kill. We grabbed some mango and honeydew, and tried the traditional Malay breakfast of roti canai. It is a pancake that sometimes includes an egg, and you dip it in a yummy curry sauce. It was tasty, but not very filling. This is kind of what it looked like:
We had no problems on the ferry; it took about an hour to get there. The boarding process seemed to take forever though! I thanked my new Iranian friends before leaving because without them, I'd probably still be in KL! I had successfully made it to Langkawi, an island off the west coast of Malaysia, so far north it is practically Thailand.
The island was a lot bigger than I was expecting. The taxi ride to the airport was about 30 km! I stayed at Hotel Helang, which isn't on the beach, but the only hotel I could find for 4 nights in a row at the same place. Apparently everyone, even non-Chinese people, take a holiday during the New Year, so most places were packed. And with the $50 a night price tag, I could hardly beat that!
After a brief shower, I was off to Chenang Beach on the west coast of the island. It is one of the most popular beaches, and is where most of the "life" is. Here, you can swim, jet ski, ride a banana boat, parasail, or just relax with a book and beer in hand at one of the many beachfront cafes. I bought a chair for myr 10, kicked my shoes off, and enjoyed the scenery:
Once the wind changed directions, there were tons of people out parasailing. Most of the time, there were 5 different parasails up in the sky. It looked like a ton of fun, and even though I was pretty nervous, I gave it a shot. I'm so glad I did! It was fantastic! I could see everything it felt like. The surrounding islands were gorgeous, and I could see all of the 2km long beach. I've never done anything like it before, and would have loved to have gone a second time. I'm the one that is up the highest in the picture:
It ended up to be an excellent afternoon and evening, despite the stress earlier on! After having some dinner at one of those beachfront cafe's, I called it a night and headed back to the hotel. The lack of sleep and the sun made me completely exhausted!
We had no problems on the ferry; it took about an hour to get there. The boarding process seemed to take forever though! I thanked my new Iranian friends before leaving because without them, I'd probably still be in KL! I had successfully made it to Langkawi, an island off the west coast of Malaysia, so far north it is practically Thailand.
The island was a lot bigger than I was expecting. The taxi ride to the airport was about 30 km! I stayed at Hotel Helang, which isn't on the beach, but the only hotel I could find for 4 nights in a row at the same place. Apparently everyone, even non-Chinese people, take a holiday during the New Year, so most places were packed. And with the $50 a night price tag, I could hardly beat that!
After a brief shower, I was off to Chenang Beach on the west coast of the island. It is one of the most popular beaches, and is where most of the "life" is. Here, you can swim, jet ski, ride a banana boat, parasail, or just relax with a book and beer in hand at one of the many beachfront cafes. I bought a chair for myr 10, kicked my shoes off, and enjoyed the scenery:
Once the wind changed directions, there were tons of people out parasailing. Most of the time, there were 5 different parasails up in the sky. It looked like a ton of fun, and even though I was pretty nervous, I gave it a shot. I'm so glad I did! It was fantastic! I could see everything it felt like. The surrounding islands were gorgeous, and I could see all of the 2km long beach. I've never done anything like it before, and would have loved to have gone a second time. I'm the one that is up the highest in the picture:
It ended up to be an excellent afternoon and evening, despite the stress earlier on! After having some dinner at one of those beachfront cafe's, I called it a night and headed back to the hotel. The lack of sleep and the sun made me completely exhausted!
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Malaysia Trip Planning
It's time for me to take another trip :) For my last 5 days of vacation, I will be taking a one week trip to Malaysia. I've been doing lots of research of what I want to do, so here's the outline. I'll be doing this trip on my own, and therefore have lots of freedom to do exactly what I want, when I want. Here's what it looks like so far.
February 12th- fly out of Incheon at 11 am, arrive in Kuala Lapur at 4:50 pm. There's a few time changes in there, I think flying time is around 6 hours. I plan on sleeping for most of it! That evening, I will stay at the Red Palm hostel, which is located in Bukit Bintang, the center of the city. It should be a great location, and the reviews on hostelworld.com sound great. I've also read that I need to buy a taxi coupon from the arrival hall at Sentral Station because otherwise taxi's may rip you off.
13th- I'll leave the hostel early in the morning and go to Puduraya Bus Station, where I need to buy a "transnational express" bus ticket to Kuala Perlis. Kuala Perlis is so far north it almost touches Thailand. According to Mapquest, that will be about 5 1/2 hours away. From Kuala Perlis, I'll take a 1 hour ($4) ferry ride to the tropical island of Langkawi. I'm so excited to get there! That evening, I will be staying at Hotel Helang. I've emailed the hotel two times now to send me my confirmation, but haven't heard back. I was so worried about getting a hotel, with it being Chinese New Year (2010- year of the tiger!) that I'm sure I booked it... I hope. However, there are still rooms available if I did infact somehow miss that minor part of planning! I don't know how I could have forgotten, so fingers crossed. I wish I could stay in this hotel!
14th, 15th, 16th- There is lots to do on Langkawi, most revolving around the 4 best white-sand beaches. Snorkeling in the marine park, scuba diving, jet skiing, mangrove tours, eagle feeding, shark feeding, alligator and snake park, canopy tours, hiking, kayaking to nearby islands (!), spas (I think the Ishan spa sounds fabulous!), and parasailing. I've read lots of places it is easy to rent a scooter, so I'd love to do that, maybe for two days so I can check out all the beaches. The pictures look fantastic and I just hope it looks that good in person. I'm also really dying to go snorkeling again after the awesome experience I had in the Philippines. And of course, there's plenty of bars, restaurants, and shopping. I really want to get a nice cold Pina Colada at a bar where you can stick you feet in the sand under an umbrella... mmm sounds great to me. This is Pulau Payar Marine Park, where I hope to take a day trip to snorkel!
17th- I'll check out of the hotel, and take a ferry to Georgetown. I have a feeling I may never want to leave the island though! It should take about 2 1/2 hours to get to Georgetown, and I'll stay at Huttonlodge. I haven't done much research about this town yet, but I think there is lot of Spanish influence here.
18th- The next day, I'll take a bus back to Kuala Lampur, where I will again stay at Red Palm. I'll use my freetime for sightseeing there. Apparently the city itself isn't very large, about the size of Gwangju. I really want to see the petronas tower. I've heard it's like going to Seattle without seeing the Needle. Here's what it looks like. It reminds me of a movie, though I can't remember what. I feel like it had Catherine Zeta-Jones in it though.
19th- I'll have all day on the 19th to sightsee more in KL. Maybe even do some shopping. I need to go to the airport in the early evening since I catch a red-eye flight at 11:30 pm. I'll get back technically on the 20th (Saturday morning) at 6:45 or so. I imagine hitting up the jimjilbang in the bottom of the Incheon Airport would feel amazing after sleeping on the plane. Ahh just a few more days left until I'm here:
February 12th- fly out of Incheon at 11 am, arrive in Kuala Lapur at 4:50 pm. There's a few time changes in there, I think flying time is around 6 hours. I plan on sleeping for most of it! That evening, I will stay at the Red Palm hostel, which is located in Bukit Bintang, the center of the city. It should be a great location, and the reviews on hostelworld.com sound great. I've also read that I need to buy a taxi coupon from the arrival hall at Sentral Station because otherwise taxi's may rip you off.
13th- I'll leave the hostel early in the morning and go to Puduraya Bus Station, where I need to buy a "transnational express" bus ticket to Kuala Perlis. Kuala Perlis is so far north it almost touches Thailand. According to Mapquest, that will be about 5 1/2 hours away. From Kuala Perlis, I'll take a 1 hour ($4) ferry ride to the tropical island of Langkawi. I'm so excited to get there! That evening, I will be staying at Hotel Helang. I've emailed the hotel two times now to send me my confirmation, but haven't heard back. I was so worried about getting a hotel, with it being Chinese New Year (2010- year of the tiger!) that I'm sure I booked it... I hope. However, there are still rooms available if I did infact somehow miss that minor part of planning! I don't know how I could have forgotten, so fingers crossed. I wish I could stay in this hotel!
14th, 15th, 16th- There is lots to do on Langkawi, most revolving around the 4 best white-sand beaches. Snorkeling in the marine park, scuba diving, jet skiing, mangrove tours, eagle feeding, shark feeding, alligator and snake park, canopy tours, hiking, kayaking to nearby islands (!), spas (I think the Ishan spa sounds fabulous!), and parasailing. I've read lots of places it is easy to rent a scooter, so I'd love to do that, maybe for two days so I can check out all the beaches. The pictures look fantastic and I just hope it looks that good in person. I'm also really dying to go snorkeling again after the awesome experience I had in the Philippines. And of course, there's plenty of bars, restaurants, and shopping. I really want to get a nice cold Pina Colada at a bar where you can stick you feet in the sand under an umbrella... mmm sounds great to me. This is Pulau Payar Marine Park, where I hope to take a day trip to snorkel!
17th- I'll check out of the hotel, and take a ferry to Georgetown. I have a feeling I may never want to leave the island though! It should take about 2 1/2 hours to get to Georgetown, and I'll stay at Huttonlodge. I haven't done much research about this town yet, but I think there is lot of Spanish influence here.
18th- The next day, I'll take a bus back to Kuala Lampur, where I will again stay at Red Palm. I'll use my freetime for sightseeing there. Apparently the city itself isn't very large, about the size of Gwangju. I really want to see the petronas tower. I've heard it's like going to Seattle without seeing the Needle. Here's what it looks like. It reminds me of a movie, though I can't remember what. I feel like it had Catherine Zeta-Jones in it though.
19th- I'll have all day on the 19th to sightsee more in KL. Maybe even do some shopping. I need to go to the airport in the early evening since I catch a red-eye flight at 11:30 pm. I'll get back technically on the 20th (Saturday morning) at 6:45 or so. I imagine hitting up the jimjilbang in the bottom of the Incheon Airport would feel amazing after sleeping on the plane. Ahh just a few more days left until I'm here:
Monday, January 11, 2010
Philippines Trip Day Six
The next day, we woke up early to take a banana boat ride to the islands. We ate breakfast poolside, and got our things organized for the day. At the beach, we loaded into two banana boats. A banana boat is a long skinny boat with two wooden floaty things on each side. It doesn't look very sturdy, and just as we were approaching the beach, our motor stopped! However, the scenery and ocean was so beautiful, I could have been stuck out there for a while and just appreciated the view. I took some pictures during the ride, here's what we looked like cruisng along in the water:
We eventaully got to the beach, and I basically ran immediately into the water. It was perfect for swimming. While I was out there enjoying the surf, another swimmer asked me if I wanted to borrow his boat drivers snorkel, mask, and flippers. Of course I said yes. For the next two hours, I paddled in the coral reefs along the beach. It is so hard to describe, the best adjective I can think of is "magical." I've never experienced anything like that in my life. It was like swimming in Nemo's tank, except a million times bigger, and with so much varitey. It blew Ocean Park Aquarium in Manila out of the water. The fish were gorgeous, and there must have been a hundred different varieties that I saw. The coral was perfect, and I even got to see a jelly fish and a foot-long+ water snake! That was kind of creepy. The best part of that was that Uncle Eddie was out there with me, so I had someone to share it with. If only I had a waterproof camera...
After three hours at the beach, we cruised back to the hotel and drove to Manila. Since it was New Years Eve, a big party was underway by the time we got back to San Juan. We got into town around 6 pm, and the neighbor kids were already starting to light off firecrackers and bottle rockets in the alley. The noise was unbelievable! I had no idea that this level of noise from fireworks was possible!
Later on, we went up to the party on the fourth floor of the apartment, on the rooftop garden. I had a perfect 360 degree view of the city, and fireworks were being shot off in every single direction. It was so hard to describe. The quality of the fireworks weren't that great, but the most impressive part was the fact that they were being shot off in all parts of the city. It was a ton of fun. Since pictures can't really capture the amount of fireworks that were shot off, I took video instead, but am unsure how to post videos on here. Guess that's something for me to figure out this winter break! ^^
More pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=59501140#/album.php?aid=2219385&id=59501140
We eventaully got to the beach, and I basically ran immediately into the water. It was perfect for swimming. While I was out there enjoying the surf, another swimmer asked me if I wanted to borrow his boat drivers snorkel, mask, and flippers. Of course I said yes. For the next two hours, I paddled in the coral reefs along the beach. It is so hard to describe, the best adjective I can think of is "magical." I've never experienced anything like that in my life. It was like swimming in Nemo's tank, except a million times bigger, and with so much varitey. It blew Ocean Park Aquarium in Manila out of the water. The fish were gorgeous, and there must have been a hundred different varieties that I saw. The coral was perfect, and I even got to see a jelly fish and a foot-long+ water snake! That was kind of creepy. The best part of that was that Uncle Eddie was out there with me, so I had someone to share it with. If only I had a waterproof camera...
After three hours at the beach, we cruised back to the hotel and drove to Manila. Since it was New Years Eve, a big party was underway by the time we got back to San Juan. We got into town around 6 pm, and the neighbor kids were already starting to light off firecrackers and bottle rockets in the alley. The noise was unbelievable! I had no idea that this level of noise from fireworks was possible!
Later on, we went up to the party on the fourth floor of the apartment, on the rooftop garden. I had a perfect 360 degree view of the city, and fireworks were being shot off in every single direction. It was so hard to describe. The quality of the fireworks weren't that great, but the most impressive part was the fact that they were being shot off in all parts of the city. It was a ton of fun. Since pictures can't really capture the amount of fireworks that were shot off, I took video instead, but am unsure how to post videos on here. Guess that's something for me to figure out this winter break! ^^
More pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=59501140#/album.php?aid=2219385&id=59501140
Monday, October 12, 2009
"I can't wait to have fish come and eat my feet!"
I decided that it was about time to visit my good friend Dinah in Busan last week. I bought a bus ticket for Friday night, and got there a little late. Traffic on the roads were especially bad because this was the weekend of the 14th annual PIFF festival (Pusan International Film Festival). I happend to be riding the bus with two other EPIK teachers from Gwangju, Brian and Carleigh. A lot of other people from Gwangju were going to Busan too (Brian and Emily, Alex and Allie, Gabe, me, Carlo, Ann, Amanda, Shabana, Amandeep, and Mechele) but everyone traveled separately for the most part.
When I got in Friday, we went basically straight out to one of the downtown areas in Busan. We went to two places, Keno-eye and Ghetto Bar. It wasn't really that Ghetto! I got to see a lot of people I hadn't seen for a while, Dinah, Ben, Neil, and Natalie, and got introducted to a lot of other Busan EPIK teachers. It made for a good but late night (we got back to Dinah's apartment at 6 am!).
Saturday we slept most of the day. We finally got out of bed around 1, and left around three. We met one of Dinah's friends from church, John, and he showed Gabe, Dinah, and I around town. We saw the Jung-gu area of town. Highlights there included Yongdusan Park, Jagalchi Fish Market area, and Busan tower. We also went to a huge market area, but I can't remember the name off the top of my head. We went up to the top of Busan tower (118 m), and got a good view of the port. Busan has the 5th largest container port in the world, and the biggest in Korea. It was a lot of fun to see the boats coming in. I took a lot of pictures and will post them soon.
We met some friends for dinner in a different part of town. It was really good- fried rice, chicken, and spicy sauce. It is called DakGalbi, or 달갈비. We got to see Brian, Emily, Neil, Allie, and Alex. Dinah and I ducked out of dinner a little early to get our feet eaten by fish.
We went to Dr. Fish, a place that is similar to a Borders or Barnes and Nobles. However, they have an area where for 2,000 won you can get your feet eaten by fish. What happens is you wash your feet, and put them in a tank where there are at least a hundred small fish. They come and eat the dead skin off your feet. At first, Dinah and I were shrieking with laughter and causing a comotion. It tickled so much! It was the strangest feeling. It almost felt like you were getting poked with a needle all over but it didn't hurt at all. I took a few video clips of that too. It was quite the experience. Once we got used to the sensation, it was a lot of fun. It would make for a great first date! I'd really like to find one of those places here in Gwangju. We stayed for about 30 minutes, but we could have stayed 2 hours if we wanted. My feet did feel a lot smoother after just the 30 minutes though!
Saturday night we took it easy and checked out the Gwangalli Beach area. That part of town is known for the Diamond Bridge which lights up and is quite beautiful. There were plenty of bars and cafe's to choose from, but the Busan's crowd's favorite is Thursday Party. It was pretty fun, and it was good to have the Gwangju group back with the Busan group.
There was a person selling fireworks on the beach, and Alex really like lighting those off. It made for some great pictures. It was a really good time, but we headed home early (2am) because we wanted to do church in the morning.
Dinah goes to a place called ICC, so we made it there by 10:30 am on Sunday morning. It is a church for foreigners and is non-demoninational to accompany everyone. It was pretty nice and the people were really welcoming.
We wanted to go to a place in Haeundae Beach (often the beach is compared to Wikiki) for lunch, but kinda ran out of time. Instead we got Burger King there. The beach is the headquarters for PIFF, and Dinah and I had our picture taken on the red carpet where the stars come and stand to promote their films. That was pretty cool. We didn't have time to see any movies, but that was okay with me. I've heard that between 75-80 countries are represented at the fest, and Josh Hartnet was even in town promoting a film. It is a really big deal for Busan, and it is the largest film fest in Asia.
Gabe and I got the bus back at 3:30 on Sunday, and we were both pretty tired. I'll be sure to put up pictures soon so you can see the city!
When I got in Friday, we went basically straight out to one of the downtown areas in Busan. We went to two places, Keno-eye and Ghetto Bar. It wasn't really that Ghetto! I got to see a lot of people I hadn't seen for a while, Dinah, Ben, Neil, and Natalie, and got introducted to a lot of other Busan EPIK teachers. It made for a good but late night (we got back to Dinah's apartment at 6 am!).
Saturday we slept most of the day. We finally got out of bed around 1, and left around three. We met one of Dinah's friends from church, John, and he showed Gabe, Dinah, and I around town. We saw the Jung-gu area of town. Highlights there included Yongdusan Park, Jagalchi Fish Market area, and Busan tower. We also went to a huge market area, but I can't remember the name off the top of my head. We went up to the top of Busan tower (118 m), and got a good view of the port. Busan has the 5th largest container port in the world, and the biggest in Korea. It was a lot of fun to see the boats coming in. I took a lot of pictures and will post them soon.
We met some friends for dinner in a different part of town. It was really good- fried rice, chicken, and spicy sauce. It is called DakGalbi, or 달갈비. We got to see Brian, Emily, Neil, Allie, and Alex. Dinah and I ducked out of dinner a little early to get our feet eaten by fish.
We went to Dr. Fish, a place that is similar to a Borders or Barnes and Nobles. However, they have an area where for 2,000 won you can get your feet eaten by fish. What happens is you wash your feet, and put them in a tank where there are at least a hundred small fish. They come and eat the dead skin off your feet. At first, Dinah and I were shrieking with laughter and causing a comotion. It tickled so much! It was the strangest feeling. It almost felt like you were getting poked with a needle all over but it didn't hurt at all. I took a few video clips of that too. It was quite the experience. Once we got used to the sensation, it was a lot of fun. It would make for a great first date! I'd really like to find one of those places here in Gwangju. We stayed for about 30 minutes, but we could have stayed 2 hours if we wanted. My feet did feel a lot smoother after just the 30 minutes though!
Saturday night we took it easy and checked out the Gwangalli Beach area. That part of town is known for the Diamond Bridge which lights up and is quite beautiful. There were plenty of bars and cafe's to choose from, but the Busan's crowd's favorite is Thursday Party. It was pretty fun, and it was good to have the Gwangju group back with the Busan group.
There was a person selling fireworks on the beach, and Alex really like lighting those off. It made for some great pictures. It was a really good time, but we headed home early (2am) because we wanted to do church in the morning.
Dinah goes to a place called ICC, so we made it there by 10:30 am on Sunday morning. It is a church for foreigners and is non-demoninational to accompany everyone. It was pretty nice and the people were really welcoming.
We wanted to go to a place in Haeundae Beach (often the beach is compared to Wikiki) for lunch, but kinda ran out of time. Instead we got Burger King there. The beach is the headquarters for PIFF, and Dinah and I had our picture taken on the red carpet where the stars come and stand to promote their films. That was pretty cool. We didn't have time to see any movies, but that was okay with me. I've heard that between 75-80 countries are represented at the fest, and Josh Hartnet was even in town promoting a film. It is a really big deal for Busan, and it is the largest film fest in Asia.
Gabe and I got the bus back at 3:30 on Sunday, and we were both pretty tired. I'll be sure to put up pictures soon so you can see the city!
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Byeonsan Peninsula National Park
Sunday my 5 closest Gwangju friends (Brian, Emily, Alex, Alli, and Gabe) and I went to Byeonsan Peninsula National Park. We've been talking about going to the coast for a while, so we were able to actually make it happen.
We decided to meet at the bus terminal at 10, and decide where/how to get there. Luckily, Emily was prepared, and she had asked her co-teacher for some of the best beaches in the area. We decided to go to Byeonsan because it had nice beaches and was relatively close.
Our bus ticket cost only 6,600 won. Thats about $5 for an hour and a half ride on a coach bus. Some of us were tired from the night before, but we didn't sleep on the bus because we were too busy talking and goofing around. We got to Buan without a problem, and from there the ticket man took us to the local bus stop where we boarded another bus to the beach. This ride was much shorter, I saw a sign that said 15 km.
We got to the beach, and the tide was out. The sand seem to stretch for ages. There were thousands of shells and rocks to look at, and we had fun with a jellyfish type creature.
We layed around the beach for a while until we realized the tide was coming in. Alex and Brian tossed around a frisbee and the girls took a walk around town. It was a very sleepy, quiet town, but we were the only tourists. That was okay with us.
Around 3, we started to get hungry. Luckily, we had spotted a restaurant up by the main road. They were serving FRESH seafood. It took us about 10 minutes to order. We didn't have a phrasebook (thanks, Gabe), and the little old owner didn't speak any English. Finally, Alex was able to communicate to her what we wanted (fresh clams). We were just praying that we were going to have enough food for the 6 of us.
The food came out, and our first though was, "I need a beer!" Don't get me wrong, the food looked great, but it was going to take a little bit of liquid courage to get through it. The food just kept coming!
Here's a picture of some of the food. It may not look appetizing to you, but it was great. It was the best seafood I ever had. And we had plenty of it, too! We also ordered 2 servings of noodles, and went through 6 large bottles of Hite. By the end of the meal, we were stuffed, but we didn't stop eating until every last clam was gone.
This is our group after the meal. We raved the entire meal about how delicious it was. You can't tell from this picture, but the beach was right behind me. What a pretty view. I took plenty of pictures, and you can click on this link to look at the rest of the pictures in my Facebook album.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=2203179&id=59501140&page=2
Overall, it was a great day at the beach. We told other EPIK teachers on Monday that we had gone over the weekend, and now everyone wants to go back before it gets cold. Our group was so happy that we made it there and back without any problems.
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