Sinchon Station totally empty at 7:30 am on a Saturday
I woke up early Saturday morning so I could make it to Seoul Station in time for me to catch my 8:50 am train to Busan, Korea! Busan is the second biggest city in Korea and is located on the southeastern coast of the Korean peninsula.
The inside of Seoul Station
It took me longer than I expected to get to Seoul Station from Yonsei University so once I got to the train I only had 10 minutes before the train departed. When I tried to board the train, I couldn't get on because I actually only had my order confirmation and the train employee told me I had to go use the confirmation to my ticket, so I sprinted to the ticketing booth to get my tickets. I managed to get on the train 3 minutes before it departed! Phew!
Getting on my train at Seoul Station
While I was on the train I sat next to a very nice halmoni (할머니) which is the Korean word for grandmother. She didn't speak English but I spoke enough Korean to be able to tell her that I'm a student at Yonsei University and that I'm traveling to Busan to see the city and visit my friend who lives there. She did a video chat with her grandchild and showed the baby to me so I waved to the camera and said, "안녕하세요!" (annyeong haseyo) which means "Hello" in Korean. Later on, she tried to buy me a waffle from the snack cart that came by and I kept saying "아니요! 아니요!" (aniyo! aniyo!) which means "No! No!" in Korean. However, she would not take no for an answer and kept insisting so I had to quickly using my phone to translate and figure out how to tell her I was allergic and couldn't eat it!
The inside and outside of Busan Station
I arrived in Busan at 11:30 am and called my Korean friend, 지원 (Jiwon) which is pronounced like "gee-wahn", who lives in Busan. I met her at the Boryeong Mud Festival through our mutual friend 호근 (Hogeun, pronounced like "hoe-goon"). I waited for her at Busan Station and then we headed out to go get lunch.
Eating lunch!
We ate at a Korean restaurant very close to Busan Station and had beef soup. It was very delicious! We also had pork wrapped in lettuce with spicy stuff inside. I don't actually know the Korean names of any of this, but it was all very tasty.
Jiwon and me in Nampo-dong
After lunch, we walked to the subway station and rode it to Nampo-dong, which is famous for its street markets. It reminded me a lot of the Namdaemun shopping district in Seoul. We browsed through the various vendors and walked through BIFF Square. BIFF Square is where they host the Busan International Film Festival every year which is a very popular Asian film festival.
At Bosu-dong Book Alley
From BIFF Square we walked further north to the Bosu-dong Book Alley, which is a tiny street famous for all of the bookstores on it which are all packed to the brim with books (mainly in Korean language, but some in other languages).
So many books!
It was pretty hot and we were tired so we decided to stop at a little cafe in the Book Alley and have patbingsu, the Korean shaved ice dessert. We had perfect timing because as soon as we went in the cafe it started raining and it stopped by the time we finished the dessert!
Patbingsu in the cafe. The little pitcher had condensed milk in it to pour on top.
After we finished the patbingsu, we walked to this staircase with big paintings on all the walls that tells a story in Korean. It was cool but very steep and tiring! After we reached the top, there was actually nothing to do up there so we turned around and headed back down.
The colorful staircase story
We decided to walk back south toward Jagalchi Market, which is a fish market on the harbor. There were a lot of exotic fish being sold and some vendors selling other cool things, like traditional Korean knives.
(Left) Jagalchi fish market. (Right) Standing by the harbor.
Posing at the harbor!
After we saw the harbor we hopped on the subway and rode to Gwangan Station to go see the beach. Busan is very famous for its beaches, especially Haeundae beach. However, it was really far to get to Haeundae beach so we changed our plans and went to Gwangalli beach instead.
Seeing the sights at Gwangalli beach.
Gwangalli beach was very nice but also very crowded. We walked around and tested the water (it was very cold!). We decided to walk over to one end of the beach and rest on some chairs that were set up for a Battle of the Bands/Fashion Competition to benefit a local university.
Panoramic photo of Gwangalli beach!
At that point Jiwon's friend, Alexis, came and met us at Gwangalli beach. We decided to eat raw fish for dinner (kind of like sushi without the rice) and the place we chose to eat at was really cool! You walk in on the bottom floor and they have all kinds of fresh fish in tanks and we chose which fish we wanted. The woman working there fished them out of the tanks and put them in a bucket and we all got on the elevator and went up to the 10th floor where they prepared the fish and we ate. The meal was good and it was the freshest fish I think I have ever had!
Choosing our fish and taking it up the elevator in the bucket
The restaurant we ate in and the view from the window
Posing for a photo at dinner with Jiwon and Alexis
After dinner we went back down to the beach and walked around a bit. By chance, there happened to be a Korean pop concert happening right on the beach, so we ended up seeing some Korean pop musicians perform. It was extremely crowded but really exciting, too. The most famous group that we saw perform is called Shinee (샤이니).
Standing on Gwangalli beach at night with the bridge lit up in the background!
After Shinee finished performing, we decided to continue walking down the street, which had turned into a pedestrian street by this time of night. I'm not sure if it was actually blocked off or if there were so many people that it just became a pedestrian street by force.
Video of the concert on the beach
We found some traditional Korean games set up in the street that we played. One of the games, called tuho, involved throwing large plastic arrows into a bucket and another game, called jegichagi, was similar to hacky sack. I was decent at tuho but terrible at jegichagi!
A video of me playing jegichagi
After playing the games, we decided to head out so we could make it home before the trains closed. We walked back to Gwangan Station and then headed to Busan National University, which is the school that Jiwon goes to. Jiwon was kind enough to let me stay in her apartment while she stayed with her neighbor. I thanked her profusely and gave her gifts that I brought from America in an attempt to show my gratitude!
Going down the escalator in the subway
The next day we bought a small breakfast at a convenience store and then walked to Busan National University where Jiwon showed me the practice room that she used to rehearse with her band. It was really impressive! They had a drum set, huge amplifiers, and countless guitars. We ate breakfast in the practice room and then eventually walked through campus and into the nearby area.
Busan National University campus
Playing drums in the practice room!
We ate lunch at a place called Pumpkins which unsurprisingly served pumpkins! We had a pumpkin covered with beef and cheese. It was really unusual but actually tasted really good! It was kind of like a pumpkin beef pizza.
Beef and cheese pumpkin
After lunch we went across the street to a place that is essentially a petting zoo combined with a cafe. The bottom floor is a cafe and if you pay 10,000 won you can go upstairs to the petting zoo. They had all kinds of animals there like guinea pigs, rabbits, lizards, snakes, hedgehogs, and even raccoons (which I thought was particularly strange).
At the petting zoo! The picture on the right accurately portrays my emotions while handling that snake.
After we spent a while at the petting zoo place, we decided that I needed to start heading toward Busan Station so I could catch my train at 3:30 pm. We walked back to the Busan National University Station and then parted ways. Luckily, I got to Busan Station much earlier than I had arrived at Seoul Station the day before so I had a much more leisurely experience.
A picture out of the window of the subway on the way to Busan Station.
The train ride back was pretty uneventful. It takes about two hours to get from Busan to Seoul on the fast train which can go near 190 miles per hour!
The train schedule at Busan Station. Mine is on the bottom!
Once I got back to Seoul Station, I hopped on the subway and headed straight for the Seoul Olympic Stadium because I was meeting my friends there to go to a soccer game. The game was Korea vs. Japan (the biggest rivalry) in the semifinals for the East Asian Cup. It was so much fun! People were waving huge flags and gigantic banners. The Japanese fans had brought a large drum and were constantly beating the drum and chanting for the entire game. On the Korean fan side we were chanting and cheering. One of the things we were chanting was, "대한민국!" (dae han min gook) which means "Republic of Korea!".
Giant Korean flag at the soccer game
The game was actually really close and we thought it would go into overtime but sadly, Japan score a goal in the last few minutes of the game, with the final score being Japan 2 - 1 Korea.
Video: Cheering for a near goal at the game
Video: People chanting and waving big Korean flags
After the game we were all pretty tired so I headed back to Yonsei University and called it a night!
Gwangalli beach at night
That's all for now~
