We visited the second largest city in Korea, Busan. It's the "capital" of the south side with great beaches and a huge port. It's unofficially called the "Miami of Korea". And because it was a bit rainy weekend when we went there, we had to motivate ourselves by shouting: Busan, babe, Miami!
Day 1: We left from Seoul in the morning. We took the KTX which goes 300 km an hour. It was funny; we travelled through the whole country in three hours.
Crossing Hangang on the train with a view to 63 building.
Making our way in the subway in Busan.
As soon as we got to Busan and to our "hotel" we went swimming. Water temperature was swimmable :) at least to Finns... But there we saw how Koreans spend time on the beach. Because Koreans are so concerned about not showing any skin and terrified about getting tanned, they don't have that kind of beach culture where they would wear bikinis and hang out on a beach or go swimming. They're fully dressed. And their activities are carrying each other into the water. I mean, this wasn't that just one person did this. On the beaches there were people everywhere, fully dressed and completely wet. They're gonna have a nice way back home in the subway then... :)
We showed an example and wet swimmin properly.
Feeling refreshed we hit the town. Busan wasn't that different from Seoul. I heard that there would be a huge change, but it was quite the same. However I noticed a light defference in the way people dressed. Busaners wore more laid-back clothing that Seoulers. For example there were no high heels-tight stockings-small dress-girls Seoul is full of. And people didn't look like the last time they had eaten was last Christmas.
A sight Busan was full of: seafood restaurants with aquariums outside. Some aquariums were so full it felt bad to see the animals inside suffering and waiting to be eaten.
We ate dinner on Gwanganli beach in a cool restaurant with a really cool view to a big bridge. And this is a really nice picture of Raita. :)
Us and the big bridge.
In the evening we played Gregor's favourite game, "Greifen!" :) (but i sucked in it...)
It was a bit weird though. We accidently went to an escort bar which was supposed to be classy and stuff, but we made a lot of noise. Well at least Tola here seems to fit to the classy part. :)
After that we went to celebrate Busan, babe, Miami! and shot fireworks near the beach.
And after that we went to a norebang. I was totally exhausted, because the night before was my hip hop performance, but everybody else rocked the house singing 99 red balloons and Let's twist again.
There is also a video of this, but i guess the singers would mind if I uploaded it... ;)
Soon after this wild performance my wish got true and we wen't to sleep.
Day 2: Our "hotel" was a traditional Korean one with no beds. There were thin blankets as matresses. Yay... Sleeping on that kind of a bed wasn't really that awful though, but some of my body parts were a bit sore the next day.
Our beds.
Our day 2 was a bit... well... Tola, Aapo and Gregor went hiking, but because of the rainy and foggy weather they didn't really see much of the views. But they enjoyed the hike. Ho Yiu and Birgit went to some temples and I guess they had okay time too. But me, Raita and Ville we wanted to go to an indoor snowboarding place. And we had problems one after another.
At first we took the subway to a wrong place we thought the "Snow Castle" was at. After wandering around and getting the real address, because we were so lazy and slow in the morning, we had to take a taxi there to win time. Well, it was quite far and we sat in the taxi. And after a while we arrived to the right place. But the place was closed. It seemed like it had gone bankrupt or something, but there was no mention of anything on the website. Well, it was already late afternoon and we hadn't done anything but sat in a taxi. And we were in Busan! And it was raining... Soo, we kept sitting in that same taxi and gave the driver another destination: jimjilbang (Korean sauna). That was the best decision that day. (By the way, taxis are cheap here. Our one and a half hour taxi drive cost 15 €.)
The jimjilbang was pretty fancy. There were many different pools inside and also on a balcony. There was a great view to the beach and my favourite sauna was one with huge windows and the great view. It was a perfect way to spend a rainy day: bathing and relaxing in hot pools and saunas.
In the evening we all met up and went to have dinner.
I was the grill master. :)
We also went to a sport bar because the soccer fans needed to see a game. We others hung out and played celebrity games.
And Raita taught Aapo a lesson. :)
It was a rainy night and Gregor shot a video of the ambiance.
We didn't feel like hanging in the bar the whole evening, so we rather went home to do activities. :) We played Greifen!, human piles on Ville, rolling Tola to the toilet and other quite weird things.
Another pile.
We realized that we hadn't gone swimming that day, so at 3 am we Finns (surprisingly...) headed to the beach. Since it was raining outside, towels were unnecessary. So off we went to the street wearing only bikini. Nah, it was fine, we got wet anyway. But when some Koreans saw us, they shouted: foreigners! :)
Day 3: Our last day in Busan. And it didn't rain! Yay! Of course the first thing in the morning we headed to the beach, cause we were in Busan, babe, Miami! That day was basically just beach and another beach until we left back home.
Aapo starting his morning with a little yoga.
On the beach.
Doing what Koreans don't.
Haeundae Beach.
Busan, babe, Miami!
