Busan

Busan is located on the southern tip of South Korea, and is the second largest city in the country. It is seen on the map below, highlighted in pink. It is called the summer capital of Korea due to the large number of tourists that it attracts during early and mid summer to its six beaches.

My friends and I this past weekend were some of those very same tourists as we made the trek to Busan for the annual Haeundae Sand Festival which marks the official opening of the beach for the season. Haeundae Beach is one of the most (if not the most) popular beaches in Korea, and we were not to be disappointed.

Friday was a long day that started with myself and Lindsay trekking to the gym at 7 am, and it was non-stop go from there. From the gym I went to the dentist where I got my new crown that I posted about on Friday. I felt like a very important person to be live blogging such an experience. Really, I was just bored. From the dentist I went to school, and then from school straight to the train station where we grabbed a quick bite to eat, got on the train and then headed to Busan.

On the subway to the train station.

Yes -- Eating McDonald's on the train.
It was all there was, please don't judge us.

View from our room and view from the beach. Pretty fabulous!

Busan is about three hours away from Seoul by KTX --which stands for Korea Train eXpress-- so it being around 1 am by the time we got there we didn't waste much time in hitting our beds to get some much needed rest to enjoy our Saturday.




Saturday caught me, and I'm ashamed to admit it, doubting that Korea will be everything that it says that it's going to be, because dressed up in our beach finery as we were, Saturday was COLD.

We had to wear our jackets and huddle together for warmth. Where was all this 30 degree weather that we had been experiencing in Seoul? Of course Seoul is inland and very crowded, so I guess the temperature change was to be expected, but we were still a little disappointed that our day celebrating the opening of the beach for the season didn't involve any basking in the sun.



There was still lots to see and do though, including listening to an orchestra play (on the beach!) and looking at some pretty amazing sand sculptures.

We wandered around looking at everything for a long time, did some shopping, treated ourselves to dinner at TGI Friday's and we were pretty tired by the time we were done.

Some people went out after, but Amanda and I stayed in a watched movies and were down for the count by about midnight.

Unlike our first day the next day was gloriously wonderful. The sun was hot, but not sweltering and after we checked out of our hotel we headed straight to the beach as we were having to leave that day and didn't want to miss out on any of our much desired beach time. The weather was beautiful and the hot air made us think that the water must also be warm. We tried our best to get in but to little avail. The water was freezing! Two girls actually made it all the way in for a brief dip, but I was not one of them.

We left the beach around 4 pm, went to the train station and were home at our apartments to recover and get ready for Monday around 9:30. A pretty fabulous weekend if I do say so myself.

Even though this was the end of our weekend, this post would not be complete without the following picture of Korean beach attire. On Sunday it was hot. Everyone with white or black skin was in a bikini, bathing suit or swim trunks, but the Koreans around us were all dressed like this...

Jeans, long sleeves, huddled under umbrellas... and they brought so much food with them! It was like a picnic in the sand where you hide from the sun. Koreans are know as a group to be pretty obsessed with the color of their skin. There are many many beauty products here to help you whiten your skin and it is very common to see Koreans on a sunny day with a parasol or with an umbrella so they can avoid the sun when they have to go somewhere outside. Amazing cultural difference!

Not a princess...

I had an incident this morning which reminded me very much of that children's story about the princess and the pea. Just in case you don't remember, the quick and dirty version is that the mother of the prince only wanted the best for his son, and said that if his bride to be was a true princess then she should not be able to sleep if there was a pea under her mattress. They piled up ten mattresses with a single pea beneath them and despite the initial skepticism of the mother-in-law to be, the princess wasn't able to sleep a wink.

Poor girl...

This morning I had a similar experience, although to my knowledge it was under the influence of no prospective mother-in-laws. When I woke up this morning, I noticed that there was not a pea, but a pea sized pebble between me and my mattress. I had slept all night, none-the-wiser, even though there was nothing between myself and my pea the the pyjamas I was wearing. If a true princess loses a night of sleep because of a pea under ten mattresses... what does that make me?

The gaping hole...

The gaping hole in my tooth is now gone!

As some of you know, the filling that once had a place in one of my rear molars departed some months ago, and it has been a little while that I've been dealing with quite a large hole in the back of my mouth! Since coming to Korea I had either been unable to, or too busy to find a dentist but I went on Monday and everything is all fixed up!

The dentist's office is really nice, and the people there all seem to speak a little bit of English, which is great. I'm really lucky to have found such a good dentist.

Going to the dentist in Korea, or to any doctor for that matter can be quiet interesting though... more information to come...

UPDATE: (May29) Directly from the dentist's office. I feel like I must be an important person, giving vital information about an important event, seeing as I am live-blogging my trip to the dentist's office! Alas, it is still only a dentist visit. Today I am getting a porcelain crown on the tooth where the gaping hole once was. They have to tweak something which should take 1/2 hour or so, and I'm cooling my heals in the waiting room until the crown is ready. I'm pretty excited to have a fully functioning tooth in my mouth, seeing as it's been so long.

The waiting room here is pretty snazzy for a waiting room, but I'm not surprised. Korea is very big on outward appearances, and the waiting room/reception area is the first impression you get of any doctor or dentist, so I can see how that would be especially important in Korea. It's a pretty big room with a really nice couch and elaborate fish tank on one side, then the desk area in the middle and on the other side of the room there are some chairs and even three courtesy computers so you can do what you have to do while you wait. I guess that's no surprise either seeing as Korean always seem to be working, but its awfully convenient. And of course it's the reason that I'm able to live blog to you right now! Whoo hoo!

In other dental news I have two more cavities! Yikes! One I knew that I had, and its pretty little, but the other one was hiding itself very well, and I had no idea it was there until I came to the dentist for the first time last week. Fortunately its tiny, and barely a cavity at all, but I'm still glad to know about it now so I can nip it in the bud.

My dentist is pretty great. His name is Dr. Kim and he really seems to know what he's up to. The funny this is, that there are five dentists here and they all have the last name Kim.

"So Laura, did you see Dr. Kim today, or did you see Dr. Kim?"

Hahaha... I'm soooo hilarious. Kim is such a common name in Korea that none of the doctors here are even related, they just all have the same name. It is easily one of the most common names in Korea along with Lee and Park. More common than any name I can think of at home even comes close to. In each of my classes of 10 students I have at least one Kim, often two or more. It's amazing.

Mandu

Mandu are a Korean dish that I have really fallen in love with since I arrived in Korea. They are a filled dumpling which are delicious, healthful (depending on how you cook them) and have I mentioned... delicious? Common fillings include meat, veggies, kimchi and noodles.

Mandu are very difficult to make by hand so I buy frozen ones at the local grocery store, but once they are made they are quite easy to prepare. There are one of two ways that you can do this. The first, and healthiest way is by steaming them, in which case they look like this:

The second, and most delicious, although much less healthy way is to fry them in a pan with oil, this makes them a little more crispy, which I really enjoy. They look like this:

Both types are usually served with a dipping sauce made of soy sauce and vinegar.

There are also different shapes of mandu, and of course different possible delicious fillings that can go inside the shell. My favourite type of filling is kimchi, which is a sure sign that I've already been living in Korea a little too long! haha

On a side note, you will be happy to know that the turtle is no longer nameless. This post is dedicated to him, as this delicious Korean dish is his namesake. I am proud to announce the turtle's new name: Mandu

Two weeks: Update!

It has been two weeks since I posted anything, and I know, much longer since I have posted anything of significance, but I'm back again, and here to stay for a little while at least!

The problem is, that even in Korea you can set into a daily routine where nothing really seems blog worthy anymore. The last two weeks have been pretty much consumed with end of the term activities (aka: report cards) and recovering (aka: moping) from the departure of my best friend on May 6th. I have recovered for the most part though from both the departure and the report cards and hope to resume blogging on a semi-regular basis if I can think of anything to tell you about.

This is where you come in!

I know that you have read posts where something is only mentioned in passing, or maybe you've heard things about Korea or Korean culture from other people and you want to know about them. Please comment on this post, or on any other, about what you would like to hear about next. Naturally there are still many topics left untouched, but once your every day life has become every-day, things don't stand out as much as they used to and you stop considering them interesting.

Your challenge if you choose to accept it...

Hate Math?

Then Korea has the toothpaste for you!

At my local department store, HomePlus:
Free tube of toothpaste when you purchase 6 bottles of soju!