Mulloskeys Adventures Abroad

After Gyeong-ju, we headed south to Korea’s 2nd largest city. Busan is on the southeast coast very close to Japan. It is also Korea’s largest port, the 4th largest in the world. The bus took us only about an hour and a short subway later we had arrived at our first attempt to find a decent hostile. Most of the subway is above ground so you get a really appreciate for just how beautiful the city was. It was like the Korean San Fransisco. Hills and mountains everywhere which development flirted with but never spoiled. The lonely planet and other travelers of Korea criticize Busan as being an unaesthetic city covered in unimaginative concrete. Certainly compared to Paris I would have to agree.. but compared to the other major cities I had seen in Korea I found it to be the most beautiful by far. Erin and I both agreed that we would be happy here on our next contract should we consider one.

We found our first hostel and were a little skeptical. Since we all had a less than favourable experience in the hostel in Gyeung-ju we decided to keep looking. We a group of 6 it is understandably tough to make decisions, especially when we are all concerned with keeping the group happy, while at the same time trying to move the process along toward completion ASAP. I would have to say we managed very well.

We found the next place called the Seoul Hotel and it had heated rooms and the blankets weren’t covered in plastic.. so it was a hit. We dropped our stuff off and headed out for the night. Our first stop was the highly touted foreign street where we were to look for cigars (remember it was NYE) and perhaps some food. This street. nicknamed “Texas Street” and was anything but. There is a fair sized Russian population here who rand the 15 or so stores, bars which lined the small block. Each had creepy old Russian ladies trying to hussle you into their humble (and I mean humble) establishments. It kinda felt like a seen of a horror movie.. the alley/street was certainly dark enough. We did manage to find cigars though. Since this was clearly no place to eat, to spend New Years, or even to spend one second longer there, we headed for our plan B – Heaundea Beach. In the summer this is Korea’s version of South Beach in Miami. Backed to the rim and lined with high end American owned hotels. It is the nicest beach in Korea. Since it was the end of December it must be fairly empty (temperatures around freezing) But we wanted to dip our hands in the Pacific Ocean, especially our pals from Indiana.

We got off the subway and walked towards the beach. Thanks to a nice Korean girl who spent a few years in New York, we were well advised on some good western restaurants near the beach. Sounds like 2 birds with one stone. We approached the beach and saw what appeared ot be a roman candle fire work go off. this was approx 8pm. We decided then to hit the beach first. We walked out onto one of the most fantastic scenes I have seen in a long while. Hundreds of thousands of Koreans were in full party mode getting ready to celebrate the New Year right there on the beach. There were concerts, drum circles, giant sand budda’s, groups with candles singing songs, and personal fireworks everywhere! It took approximately 1.3 seconds for Erin and I to switch into party mode. But that would have to wait – we needed to eat.

After some steak and many beers we headed back to the beach at 10pm. I love being able to drink anywhere here. We bought a ton of beers, champagne, and scotch and headed for our spot on the beach. It was absolutely awesome. The spirit on the beach was palpable. Video’ s are uploaded – check them out. here are some pics:

As we partied throughout the night a group of 10-12 Korean’s teenage boys seemd to get obsesed with me – mostly because of the cigar I think. Maybe it was because we were putting roman candles between our legs and shooting them out form our crotch – yes I was drunk, but everyone else was doing it… Anyways they took a bunch a pictures, and swigs of my beer and ran off.

An lady came by to sell some fireworks. I was thinking about it and had my wallet out but since we had spent our fireworks, and it was already getting late I put my wallet away and said “no thanks”. This is a big “no no” in Korea, which I learned the hard way, as she then took her handful of fireworks and proceeded to smack me on the ass as punishment. Erin promptly stepped in “Don’t you hit my husband!” (though she clearly didn’t understand English) but she did understand Erin’s fierce defense and stiff arm. Thank goodness she is always around to protect me.

We went back around 3am and dropped the girls off for bed. We went to an all night Jimjil-Bang and tried to sober up. It was our goal to hit the beach again for sunrise which is known in Korea as another huge festival – the first sunrise of the year etc.. At 5:00 we planned on laying down for just an hour.. when the alarms went off at 6:30 we laughed at ourselves and went back to sleep. For pictures of a sunrise please go to www.google.com and type in “sunrise” for some fine examples.

Here is a bad pic of the Jimjil Bang at night with Koreans all over the floor.. though this one was mostly empty. Sorry its blurry I didn’t want to peeve anyone off as it was kind of rude to do.