Soju On A School Night: Epic Weekend Act 2: Yeosu and Taejongdae

This is taking me so long to update! I'm so busy, my blog posts are falling behind, so bear with me! The second half of the weekend was a complete adventure. Saturday was the big trip to Yeosu with Casey and Caitlin to check out the World Expo 2012!

Caitlin made me try this ice cream.
Blue raspberry with pop rocks inside!

Casey and Caitlin showed up to my place around 8:30am, but we took the wrong bus to the train station and ended up missing our train at 9:10 that may or may not have been there. After some quick thinking, we hop a bus to the Masan Express Bus Terminal and take a bus to Yeosu from there. I think it actually ended up being a little faster? But definitely not as comfortable. The bus on the way there was a little hot, but it wasn't full, so I got to lay down and nap for a bit. Win.

As soon as we get off the bus, it's pretty much just a matter of Casey using his very broke (but significantly better than Caitlin or I's) Korean to ask the way to the Expo. Turns out, buses are free for the expo. That was a relief, since I had little cash and my MyB scanner was at home. It also turns out that what cost the general population 33,000 Won, and foreigners 10,000 Won, only ended up costing the three of us about 3,000 Won a piece, which was a nice bonus. I thought it looked like Disney World from the outside. They even had little mascot statues at the entrance like in Disney!

The ceiling of the building behind us was a giant screen
with 3D sea life swimming across it. Like a digital aquarium.

She was too cute not to kiss. Don't judge me.

The place was massive. Luckily we got there around 1ish? So there we complained that there were a lot of people and really long lines...but we really had no idea what we were in for later in the day. Basically, if you don't know what the World Expo is (because I definitely didn't), it's an event hosted by a different country every year with different themes so countries around the world can showcase their achievements (and maybe boost tourism). This year's theme was "Sea and Shore" and so much of it had to do with sustainable energy and such projects harnessing the ocean. Some countries just showed off their coastal access and promoted cultural exchange and tourism. The mascots for the event are Yeony and Suny who represent Sea and Shore respectively.

This guy seems pretty happy...

Not going to lie though, a lot of it was wild propaganda. Pakistan did some wild PR campaign that would have made Don Draper proud..basically selling Pakistan as the happiest and free-est place on earth. There were plenty of other really cool countries, though. We walked around and checked out some of the smaller ones without lines first and then got really hungry so we took a break for lunch. Strangely, there wasn't a ton in the way of foreign cuisine there. And what was there was outrageously expensive. So we ate some bibimbap which was a win anyway, because Korean food is still technically foreign to me. Haha. JD - 1 Expo - 0.

Octopus Bibimbap and Makgali!

It had octopus in it and i was curious to try octopus for the first time. It honestly wasn't something to get super excited about. It doesn't have a whole lot of flavor, but has a cool texture..so that aded nice variety to the dish. After lunch we decided to tackle some of the more impressive exhibits and there were some really cool ones. Turkey had a big exhibit with a digital fish pond that had fish that swam away from you if you made any sudden movements near them. So obviously we ran around trying to step on them for awhile. I also learned a lot of cool stuff I didn't know before like how Turkey is really really close to Korea. That explains why I see little kebab stands everywhere.

I can't remember what I wished for...
but I don't think Buddha answered it.

Angola was swelteringly hot inside it's building, but the video was actually really well done and made me want to visit Angola. Plus Angola was the only country that loaded me down with swag afterward. I got a flag, a pin, a hat, a passport...I love you Angola. But of course this somehow lead to Casey and I singing our own Angolan national anthem to the tune of the Kinks "Lola". So the Koreans must of thought we were drunk, wandering around singing "AN-GOLA! G-G-G-G-GOLA! A-N-G-O-GOLA!" It was really catchy and would be stuck in our heads all day. I should write a letter to the Angolan government and tell them to buy the rights to that song from The Kinks.

We were the models for all these African warrior statues.
See the resemblance?

My favorite country was Norway. There was a pretty large line, so we figured it must be awesome. It was pretty cool. We had an interactive video experience that was basically like "We're Norway! And we kick ass at extreme sports!" The country looked so gorgeous, it definitely sold me on visiting. I also learned Norway holds boxes of every type of seed in the world in a warehouse...I guess in case anything ever goes extinct? Kind of reminded me of Titan A.E. so that was nifty.

Standing on said pile of rocks...
The water was up to my knees.

We then decided to head to the opposite end of the Expo where all the exhibits with robots and super crazy interesting sounding stuff was. We got sidetracked by the shoreline because it was so hot out and ended up taking off our shoes to go play in the ocean. Casey got his jeans soaked up to the knee, but they dried really quickly. Caitlin just relaxed on the edge while Casey and I took large rocks and piled them up so we could stand on them...because...I have no idea. But it was fun and relaxing. Then we just ended up stopping again anyway to grab some smoothies to cool down. It was really really hot. I'm a big fan of how Koreans tend to jus throw down mats and take a nap wherever/whenever they feel like it. We saw enough napping Koreans at one point to make it feel like a refugee camp.

That line goes all the way
to the Samsung building.

We didn't get much more accomplished after that because around 4 or 5pm Koreans started rolling in and lines became long line Disney World doesn't even know. So we just messed around until 6-ish, but the last bus left for Changwon at 7 so we decided missing that would be a bad idea. I was a little bummed, because some of the buildings looked wild architecturally. One even had hot air balloons inside that you could ride in the building apparently!

Bonus montage: Taking pictures with Mascots:

New Zealand's Mascot!

Not sure what country this is for, but he's cute!

So we head home and the bus driver overpacks the bus some how so one lady is just left wandering the aisle with no one willing to get up to give her a seat. So I give her mine and sit on the ground in front of my seat, which it turns out was pretty much where the engine block was, so I was sweating bullets the whole ride...and my butt was on fire. Luckily Casey offered to switch with me at the halfway point and I guess we made a good impression on the people around us. The kid in front of us started sharing his snacks with everyone and the businessmen next to us loosened up and tried out their English. It was a cool public transportation bonding moment for everyone.

Then we got home and decided to get some bottles of Makgali and we drunkenly played Uno for a few hours until the went home and I passed out to get some sleep before Taejongdae the next day.

BUSAN and TAEJONGDAE -

The next day I wake up and grab an early bus to Changwon Station to pick up my friend Hyerim so we could go to Busan together. Of course, I leave my survival kit at home and so I don't have my iPad with all the bus routes and take the RIGHT bus, but it goes down a strange street and rather than see where it ends up (if you're friends with me on facebook, you'll know that last time I tried that I ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere.) I just jumped off, got all kinds of disoriented, so I grabbed a nearby taxi and rode it the whole four blocks to Changwon Station. I was so close... -_-;

I met her at the station and we grabbed a bus to Masan's Express Bus Terminal since it's cheaper to get to Busan from Masan and the Changwon/Masan terminals are relatively equidistant. Luckily, I knew how to get there already since we had gone the day before. Surprisingly, Hyerim had no idea how to get around. I guess I had this assumption that because she spoke Korean fluently, travelling around would be so much easier. But I guess an unfamiliar place is still an unfamiliar place.

This stuff is delicious!

We got on our bus and chatted for a bit. The ride was only like 45 minutes, so that was nice. We got off and had to take the subway from there. I was quickly learning that Hyerim had absolutely no sense of direction and I had to use maps to figure out all our routes. She kept telling me "oh! You are Korean!" and I kept replying "No, I just know how to use a map!" But since I could read maps, and she could speak Korean, between the two of us, I wasn't really worried about us geting lost.

First thing I noticed about Busan: there are lots of really cute, well-dressed girls in Busan. We wandered around Busan for a bit, grabbed some patbingsu, which is pretty much a big bowl of sweet milk shaved ice and fruit and honestly is probably the most delicious thing i've ever eaten. We went in a few shops, checked out a book store...I learned I read Korean on roughly a 3rd grade level, which is maybe impressive, but Hyerim kept wanting me to get children's books with sticker pages to study my Korean -_-;

After that she took me to the fish market which initially wrecked my nostrils because I had to get used to the pungent odor of the fish market, but it was actually really cool to walk through and see all the fish alive and swimming, and even some weird things that were like pulsating worms. Imagine an adams apple perpetually moving and that's kind of like these things. Even Hyerim said she doesn't like them. But they had lots of crab and even a sharks head. You can buy your seafood fresh there and they will bring it upstairs and cook it for you and serve it to you, but it was really pricey. I definitely want to do that some day though.

Boarding the boat

Then we took a bus to Taejongdae which is a famous seaside precipice that you can take a boat around (which we did) or you can take a train up to the top of (which we also did). We took the boat first and got to see some beautiful angles of the peninsula and inset caves I wish we could have explored. Being in a boat and on the sea again made me feel really good. Just smelling the salty air in Busan felt like home a little bit. Whenever another tour boat passed us, I would wave at all the people, but instead of waving back they all pulled out their cameras and started taking pictures of me -_-; It was pretty funny though. The whole time we kept asking, what is this crazy looking island in the distance? We actually eventually learned it's called teakettle island. I still don't know what it's for, but if you're in the right place at the observatory on Taejongdae, you can see Japan slightly to the right of Teakettle Island, which I thought was pretty sweet.

Teakettle Island

Posing for Korean tourists

Dicking around on the boat.

We then got off and had to take a car back to the middle of the island. Hyerim had us get into the wrong car -_-; but I honestly probably wouldn't have done much better. We get back to the midway point and stop for water. We had ice cream earlier in Busan, and it was so hot that my melon ice cream and melted all over me, so I skipped out on a second round of ice cream here. Hyerim was smart and got the ice cream in a pouch. It's initially completely frozen and you drink it as it melts. Korean ingenuity. We start the walk up to the train station and I feel like I'm climbing up to Nangsam Tower in Seoul again. This is why Korean girls have such nice legs. The line for the train was huge but I was willing to wait. It only cost 1,500 Won each for a ticket and was better then climbing all the way up and down that steep mountainside. The train was actually super adorable looking.

We took it up to the observatory where I got to see Japan and ate some Toast and Hodugwaja, which is a walnut shaped snack filled with red bean paste usually. It's delicious. We walked around the observatory and found a gallery on the top floor dedicated to some famous Korean actress who visited and took a bunch of cute photos there. I took photos that probably destroyed their original cuteness.

Look how cute we are!

Face it, we're perfect together.

Then we took the train back and ended up missing the stop to the top and had to take a SECOND train, but there was no line this time, so we were good. We got to the top by train, but unfortunately the next mile and 3,895 steps we took were down the cliff-face. Walking down was fairly easy, walking back up was a pain in the ass. I was drenched in sweat and Hyerim was just like "lalala". All the Korean girls there still looked beautiful after that climb and I have no idea what their secret is.

We made that long trek down the cliff-face because Hyerim pointed out a spot to me on the cliff that isn't roped off that where she said people used to go hurl themselves off of to commit suicide, so naturally I had to check it out. It was really awesome. This portion of the day is best summed up as beautiful pictures and a lot of bitching about walking, so I'll just give you the pictures. Enjoy!