Busan :-) Beach, Aquarium, Ice Rink, Nerds, and Museums :-)

Busan, Busan, Busan :-)  Time, once again, to see the lovely California Beach of Korea :-)  There was a party there, a nerd party (revenge of the nerds party, I think it was) so we were off, since we can't seem to get enough of Busan.

Dave was our tour guide.  He used to live there so he knew all the great places to go and (more importantly) how to get to them.

So, we met at a bus stop that was at another entrance to Ulsan Grand Park early, early, early in the morning (like 10am, man, soooo early! :-)  ) and the park was beautiful.

For the record, although it seems to be fine now, my camera didn't work, so ALL of these are Albert's pictures.  Thank you, Albert!  

Look at the pretty leaves!

For some reason, this season always makes me ache to be in school.  Such a scholarly season.  :-)

We couldn't have asked for a prettier day.

Just so you know, this is a MYb card and you put money on it and it gives you a discount on bus fare, subway fare, etc, even keeps you from having to actually buy tickets at a subway.   Why is there a picture here?  First of all because I originally wanted to blog about everyday things, like "here's my cell phone and my MYb card!" and the other reason was because our fearless leader Dave was running a bit late so we took the opprotunity to recharge our MYb's while we were waiting in the lovely park.  Well, charge our MYb's and grab some McDonald's.  :-)

Dave arrived and off we went, McDonald's and all.  And here's the picture :-)

Back of the bus, as usual, and starting the day already worse for ware, as usual :-)

An hour and severely damaged bladders later we arrived.  We thought that the bus would stop, but he just sort of kept going.  Poor Lindie was dying so the boys ran up to try to get the bus to stop.  In an effort to get out of her way I bumped my head on the luggage rack, and in an effort to rush off the bus Lindie bit the dust.  So, we were off to a good start!  :-)  We ended up very close to the beach and close to our hotel, so off we went, with all of our luggage to find the motel.  It was a lovely, lovely day!
The motel wouldn't let us check in until 4, and at this point it was only about noon or so, so off we went to find something to do.

Pretty day, isn't it?

On one side of the boardwalk was, of course, the ocean, on the other side was a wall with a bunch of colorful photo ops.

Like this one.  Little butterfly Lindie :-)

Beautiful Busan :-)

Our hotel was there with all of those buildings, or pretty close anyway.

:-)

While we were deciding what to do we walked past the Busan Aquarium and decided hey, we haven't been here and we have all this time to fill, so let's go there!  It looks really, super small, but that's because, turns out, the whole thing is underground.  So, we had to check that out.  It's right on the beach, so I wonder if the aquarium goes right underneath the beach and under the sea. . .or if it goes the other way under the street. . .maybe I could have found that out.

We decided to also spring for the glass bottom boat ride, since we had never done it.  :-)  Good times! 

Going down to the underground.  Apparently something was fascinating me.  :-)

In the first room filled with fish. . .fish and peppermint shrimp, and eels, and crabs, and. . .tons of things.

This was a beautiful tank in the middle of the first room.

Look at this crazy guy?  It was really cool because they had the names of everything in English as well.  I just don't remember what this guy was.

They had a lot of different eels.  A.  Lot.

This tank was pretty awesome because there were several mature seahorses but literally a million nearly microscopic baby ones (they were at the top and didn't really show up on the camera, but they were really cool)

These crabs were enormous.  Look how much bigger than my hand they are!  And I have enormous hands!!  Reminded me of Deadliest Catch :-)  Yummy.

Lots of jellyfish here, this was a pretty exhibit. 

These are shark eggs at different stages.  How wild is that??

A particularly beautiful tank :-)

Just like being outside!  Even though we're underground (remember?)

These guys were in the tanks.  So cool. 

One of the strangest things I've ever seen in  my entire life . . .

To me, they look like something straight out of Star Wars.  Not the old ones, either, the new stupid ones.

They had a HUGE shark tank.  With a LOT of sharks.  And this was the tank the glass bottom boat went through.

They're actually kind of pretty :-)

Not this guy, though.  He had some messed up teeth for sure.

There are apparently none of these in the actual ocean here.   Which is awesome.  Because, they're scary even behind a lot of glass.

So many sharks. 

This was a lovely underwater tunnel.  I think this one was even longer than the one at the Detroit Zoo. Pretty awesome :-)

We were all pretty fascinated.  This is a tunnel under the tank where the glass bottom boat went.  We explored this tank from all possible sides.  :-)

I think these guys were hungry, because, lucky for us they were very active.  They also kept running into each other, which was pretty amusing.

They look like dinosaur birds, don't they?  Pretty awesome. 

There were hammer heads in there with them.  Awesome.

In a tank.  This is a rare breed called "eamoo kind"  Lekker, lekker.  :-)

Not as interesting a variety, as it always looks like it doesn't quite belong in the water.

I think this was an astronaut. 

 He was trying desperately to get out.  Not a happy captive, this particular species.

Lindie took this picture simply because the sign behind her said "no pictures" and I'm posting it because it was pretty awesome :-)  also, why in the world "no pictures?"  what a tease!

This was a lovely little room :-)

This may look like a car, but it's actually a fish tank :-)

See?  It had rays sitting on the dashboard and the whole nine yards!

So amusing.

Penguins :-)

For a split second I thought those were real penguins, and before I could actually think the thought came out of my mouth (you know how fast I talk) and let me tell you was I mocked mercilessly for the rest of the. . .well, I'm actually still being mocked. 

Yikes.  We saw him when they dropped him in.  They really work as fast as they say!  We couldn't even get a "before" picture before they were finished with him!

The glass bottom boat ride was pretty cool, it was just a little bit of glass in the middle, but the boat had low sides and the tank was all around us so it was fun.  As we were going through the water a shark was getting pretty close to us and very close to the water.  While I was watching him he came right up out the water, bit at something a few times, and then slowly went back into the water, letting his fin stand out of the water for a little while.  Awesome.  Pretty scary, actually, but of course, we weren't in any real danger.  There was a small child in there that we were more than ready to sacrifice for the good of the group should the sharks decide it was time to eat some foreigners.  :)  just kidding, of course.

So, we were there for a couple of hours and then we hopped on the subway to get to the biggest department store in the whole world.  I guess I didn't really know what to expect, but it was HUGE!  It had it's own subway stop, we just got off the subway and went right into the store.  See?

The name means "new world"

Pretty cool, right??

We were really there, see???  :-)

We were the 5th or 55th floor (I lost count) there was a giant food court (food court pt 2, by the way) that was surround an indoor ice rink.  So, we got our necessary Burger King dinner and headed for the rink.  The strange thing was that when we asked for our skates they told us that we had to wear helmets.  What?  Do you know where I come from?  First of all, the land of the skaters, second of all the land of no helmets no matter what!  :-)  So, we did it since they already had our money.  These skates "laced up" like roller blades, so they just clipped closed, which was fantastic and made it so much easier.   And then we actually hit the ice.  Poor Lindie was a little. . .apprehensive?  :-)  But she did really well.  I made it halfway around the rink before I was stopped by someone who said that I HAD to put gloves on.  What??  We have to buy gloves now?  Why?  And they were just tiny little knit gloves, not like hockey gloves or anything.  Were these little things supposed to save our fingers from being severed?  I think not!  But, by the time I got back to the door everyone had been told so we got some.  But hey, you can never have too many pairs of gloves, right?  So, FINALLY we got on the ice with all of our accessories and skated for a little bit, all the while being an absolute fascination for little Korean kids, who skated in front of, around, behind, underneath, where ever, surrounding each of us. 

We stayed at the store for a couple of hours, shopping at the bookstore and the Apple store and everything, then we headed back downstairs to get a lovely new dessert.  It's like a crepe, only even thinner, and they fill it with ice cream and whipped cream, or cheese cake, or fruit, or anything, and then wrap it up like an ice cream cone and it's AMAZING!  Just, really fun.  You can get them with meat and stuff inside as well, which is probably good, but nothing beats a crepe filled with chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream.  Nothing.  :-)

Then, we headed to the motel to actually check in and get ready for the Nerd Party.

The motel had a happy, happy surprise for Lindie and I.  A BATHTUB!!  It's a miracle we left the motel that night with that thing sitting there calling to us :-)  It was lovely.  And it had a computer with internet and the computer was filled with bootleg movies and connected to the TV so we could watch all kinds of things :-)


After a bath or two we got dressed and ready to go out.  We went to this place to get started and play darts and stuff and it was on the 14th floor and was right on the beach.  I hate that I didn't get pictures from out of the window because it was just beautiful!  You could see the motel, the aquarium, the bridge where the fireworks were, and the Statue of Liberty from there!  Oh well, next time I go I'll make sure to take a picture.

I lost terribly at darts, by the way.  I'm sure that's a huge shocker.

Then, it was time for the party, which was entertaining enough since there were nerds literally EVERYWHERE.  Then we hung out for a while, got some really late McDonald's and headed back to the motel again.  I was absolutely freezing so I took a bath.  When I got out I was wide awake and it was nearly 5:30 in the morning, so I decided that it would have been a shame to let a perfectly good beach sunrise go to waste, so I went outside and walked on the beach for a while, along with a lot of jogger, and some crazy polar bear club triathlon trainees. 

At convenience stores here they have these little ovens that keep little cans of coffee warm.  In these ovens you can find coffee very similar to the kinds you get at Spinx in the machine, only with less foam, of course.  Same amount of sugar, and same amount of regret :-)  but it's so nice to go and grab one for about sixty cents, let it warm up your hands for a few minutes, and it was a nice thing to sip down on the beach.   I got some pictures of the sunrise on my cell phone, but that doesn't actually do anyone very much good.


The next day, we got up, checked out, and headed to the Busan Museum of Modern Art.  Here's some of the highlights.

These were made out of hair. . .there were several pieces in this room made out of the artist's hair. 

Kinda nice, right??  :-)

This room had a table filled with different jars filled with red liquid all piled on top of each other.  It's INSANE how a sight like screams at you to kick the whole thing over!  :-)  but we behaved.

A very. . .interesting exhibit.

These were pretty :-)  faces of Tibet.

More faces.  :-)

This one was part of three and they were HUGE!

number 2

This was a video loop, something about parliament, and for some reason gave me the creeps.

This was pretty cool :-)

After the museum we were starving to death so we headed to TGI Fridays to get some lunch :-)  It was also next to the beach, so here are some pictures from the balcony :-)

beautiful, right?

There's the aquarium!  :-)

We decided to take a train home, since we hadn't done that yet, and found that was the VERY best way to go.  :-)  It felt strangely like being on a plane.  Very nice.  :-)  No car sickness whatsoever :-)

And that was basically it :-)  Thank you, Albert for the pictures!  And thank you, Dave, for being a wonderful tour guide and taking us to all the best places (including a motel with a bathtub!)

This week is going to be a lot quieter, I think, but I think it's time we had one of those :-)