Buddha's Birthday Weekend in Busan!

Thank you Buddha! We have very few breaks during the academic school year, and I just had my last three day weekend over Buddha's birthday. The only vacation I have left is my summer trip to Vietnam in July, just a month before I come home. I can tell you that the recent three day break was 100% necessary for the sanity of everyone in the office. All the teachers just completed a day that happens only once a year at LCI. It's dreaded, prepared for a month in advanced, rehearsed over and over, and then supposed to look completely natural. The day is called...OPEN CLASS. This is where parents get to come in, sit in the back of the classroom, and observe as if it is any normal day. What the parents don't know (or aren't supposed to) is how rehearsed and scripted all the questions and answers are. Anyway, my day went as I expected...not good, and not bad, just okay. The kids were far more quiet than usual with the parents there and weren't their enthusiastic selves when answering questions as we had literally practiced them to boredom. But, I was relieved to have it over with before the break!

After quite the rat race (our travel plans are NEVER easy) to get transportation tickets over the busy holiday weekend, we headed to Busan on Friday (May 21st) morning at 7:30am by train. It was the only beautiful, sunny day of the weekend, but since we got settled into our hostel around 2:30 in the afternoon, we decided to explore the city by foot and visit the beaches for a day of relaxation on Saturday. That was a mistake. It rained the entire rest of the weekend, but we were successful none-the-less in finding many enjoyable things to do. On Friday, we found our way to the famous fish market and didn't have any of the creepy experiences we had with the one we visited near Seoul. Sadly, I'm not into sea food so although there was tons of fresh fish to try, it was all very expensive and unappealing to me, which made it hard for Shauna and Britney to experience. However, we found one of our favorite restaurants with chicken galbi and a fun shopping area that we spent the warm evening exploring. We ended the night walking to a beautiful park on a small mountain in the middle of the city. On our way, we stumbled into a temple with beautiful lanterns, all lit with real candles (we figured that out when I picked wax out of my hair then next day- it must have dripped from the lanterns as I was standing underneath them!). We reached the park with a tall lit tower and sat, chatting while overlooking the city's night lights.

On Saturday, we woke up to an overcast, chilly, and misty morning. Determined to relax on the beach, we put our swim suits on and headed out. We quickly realized that it was in no way beach weather. However, we spent the morning walking along the famous Busan beaches and the surrounding areas, taking lots of pictures, and escaping the rain on a ten minute ferris wheel ride that overlooked the city. By late afternoon we headed to a restaurant that shall remain nameless (it's an American chain) and sat there talking for over four hours while it literally poured outside. We decided to become more ambitious and accepted the offer from our co-worker Gina and her boyfriend, who were also in Busan for the weekend, to go out on the town that evening. We headed back to our hostel to clean up and went back to the beach area with lots of fun bars. It felt like a monsoon the entire evening with rain and extremely high winds, but it didn't stop us from enjoying the night!

We had set our alarms to get up early on Sunday in the case that the weather would be nice. With no luck, we took the morning to sleep in before venturing back out in the rain that seemed to get heavier and heavier. I was apprehensive at first with the amount of rain, but am so thankful that Britney convinced me to visit a near by temple. We took a 30 minute taxi ride in pouring rain only to have it lighten up right when we got there. We bought ponchos and had our umbrellas ready. Now, I would say that the rain made it even more worth it! It was overcast and incredibly beautiful in an eerie way. Haedong Yonggungsa was built in 1376 and is one of the few temples found along the coast. It is built into the rocks right on the water and honors the Seawater Great Goddess Buddha of Mercy (just some fun facts for you). We walked around in the misty rain with the waves crashing on the rocks. I can honestly say that I may not have enjoyed it nearly as much if it weren't for the timing. Once again, there were hundreds of colorful lanterns hung everywhere in honor of Buddha's birthday. Our low spirits from the gloomy weekend were lifted by the humbling beauty of this temple. I used to think once you've seen a few of the temples, you've seen them all (obviously not true for everyone), but this one proved otherwise and will certainly rank as the most beautiful one I will see in my time here. After our visit, we headed back into the city, enjoyed a warm Korean dinner (Bibimbop, of course) at a local restaurant, and caught our 7:15pm train ride back to our area. Five hours later, we arrived home. Although it's likely that was my only visit to the beach city of Korea, despite the rain, we had a more than relaxing weekend that left us rejuvenated for the weeks ahead. Next vacation...VIETNAM!