This last week was a bit of a vacation week for Korea. There were many holidays. There was Children's Day, Buddha's Birthday, and an Autumn Holiday all right before a weekend. This meant we got about 5 days off. It was a nice long break! I decided that I would go to Busan on the southern tip of Korea for part of my trip. I was there just for fun but also to visit the family of a friend from the United States. I was lucky enough that they generously offered to let me stay at their apartment for my stay. I took the KTX train from Seoul to Busan. It took about 2.5 hours to get from Seoul to Busan on the bullet train that travels near 300km/h. Until last December, this train was the fastest train in Korea! It was a nice and easy trip. I got to the train station, redeemed my ticket that I had bought online and waited for my train to arrive so that I could board. The train ride itself was very comfortable. There are outlets to charge your devices, free Wi-Fi, and the seats are decently sized. Once I got to Busan, I took the subway to my friend's family's subway station. It took about 30 minutes. I was met by my friend's family and at their apartment, I was greeted by a fabulous and delicious home cooked Korean meal. There was bulgogi, japchae, and soybean paste stew. It was so good! The next day, we went to a skywalk lookout where you can see about five islands off of the coast of Busan. It was beautiful and the skywalk was really cool! I also went out to the 40 steps monument that is a bit of a memorial for the many wars that Korea has had. There really were 40 steps! After this, I wandered for a while and I ended up finding this extremely busy street market. There were so many vendors and many people buying things. This market also covered several blocks of the street. It was really cool to see! At the end of the day, I got to have chicken and beer or chi-mek in Korean. It was super delicious! The next day, I met up with my friend that I usually adventure with in Seoul and we went to the Shinsegae Department Store in Busan which holds the Guinness World Record for the largest department store in the world. We were not there for the department store though. We were there for SpaLand. I'm going to be doing a separate post for SpaLand because it deserves it but SpaLand is essentially one of the fanciest Korean bath houses and saunas in Korea. It was an experience that was both interesting and amazing. I would definitely go again!
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AllisonThese are the chronicles of my time before, during, and after student teaching in South Korea! Archives
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