Picnics and Busan

“Were on line 6, so he must be going to Itaewon.”

I suppose it goes both ways, don’t underestimate other people’s language ability. Made out that first sentence up there on my way to World Cup Stadium this morning, there weren’t any classes today but a school picnic instead and it was really awesome too!

Really beautiful, never really been in a real autumn since I am from Texas.

I’m trying to keep the novel feeling alive everyday and just when I start to feel normality -BAM- K facial smack! It feels like I am back at home really at times, it is not the feeling of wow I am in another country like I had when I was in Japan.

At least that’s what I thought up until this weekend.

(Fast forward a few days later)

Now I am the KTX bound back to Seoul after a pretty interesting weekend in Busan. Kids be running wild on the train, which keeps me from enjoying a much needed nap.

Disregarding Korea’s kids roam free policies, Busan had lots of blogworthy events in a 2 day period.

Right off the train, we saw some ajeossi laying the smack down on a younger Korean guy from what seems to of been caused by his umbrella dripping water on him. Busan was rainy this weekend you see and I wasn’t quite prepared myself.

Had to take the subway and in front of me was this passed out guy whom a few minutes later through up on himself.

Almost makes me uncomfortable getting closer to take a picture with a train car of Koreans watching me but a bloggers gotta do what a bloggers gotta do.

Anyways took a Taxi after that and seconds after getting off I hear a fender bender behind me. Didn’t really have time to find out what happened next because I was soaking. The weekend ensued. On the way back to Busan station, just as I had put my camera away after taking a picture, I turn and there’s a homeless guy with his dick in his hand taking a piss at the people walking into the station. Didn’t get a pic of that which is something I deeply regret.

Now don’t get me wrong because Pusan is actually a pretty cool place and had tons of fun but I can’t deny it has a few ghetto elements added to the mix. I’m really not comfortable painting Pusan in what seems a negative light but I am merely posting the experiences. It’s kinda like the wild west if you compare it to Seoul in a way and anything seemed to go. Actually the rest of Pusan seemed really awesome, kind of reminds me of back home – its just that area around Pusan station that seems a little ghetto-fied. The streets were wider than Seoul and cars could actually drive without being bumper to bumpers. That’s a nice sight.

We also visited the shopping center in Seomyeon which was pretty cool and had quite a nice selection of foreigner goods too, unfortunately a little pricier than I had hopped for. There was also Heaundae beach and Gwanangalli.

There is one thing that struck me as odd and that was on how hard it was to find a fresh seafood restaurant at the beach. I feel it was easier to find it in Seoul rather than Pusan because the coast was lined up with coffeeshops, Baskin and Robbins, and various meats. But no seafood. After about an hour or two of searching though we came across this little gem on one of the buildings overlooking the fireworks festival area.

Don’t think I have ever eaten so many live things at one time, it was quite a feast and well worth the trip but was somewhat irritated that finding seafood in Pusan was that difficult considering it is next to the sea. And I must say the festival itself was pretty sweet, the drizzling stopped right before they started and people were lined up with umbrellas at the beach.

(PS. At this point rain stopped so no more umbrellas.

I guess now is about as good a time as ever to talk about something relating to dating in Korea. Now I don’t intend on making generalizations that are gonna anger people who read this but I am merely gonna talk about my opinions based on the commentary of my Korean friends, other expats, and my own expiriences so far.

So here it is, dating kinda sucks…a lot. Sucks for the guy most apparently. Here’s a new term that I am quite getting familiarized with – it’s called Miltang 밀당. I guess you can say its so bad that there’s an actual word that had to be created for it. It’s basically “Push-Pull” in relationships so if you though high school sucked in America, wait till you get a load of this.

PS. Gossip here flies at the speed of light too.

My coteacher calls it a woman’s weapon, the emerald, ruby…Omega weapon. Sucks though because it seems to only work when they do it and backfires on your face if you are a guy.

The way another one of my coteachers put it, is that at first you communicate a lot, then its push pull and once you are in a relationship the guy just keeps pulling her back in. Makes me almost have a new found level of respect for the whooped man, almost.

Will report more on my findings later!