The Savage Orient

Ok, crap, where did I leave off?

Apologies, everyone for taking so long to update. It’s been pretty rough the past few days in Japan, trying to figure things out (housing, baggage, random crashes, etc.), but I’m back assholes! Here it is in all of its glory, Korea- Day 7:

I mentioned earlier my lament over missing the opportunity to go to Busan a day earlier. Well, my fears were well founded. Our (only) day and night in Busan were fucking AMAZING. The town is awesome! David and I agree, much better than Seoul. “How,” you may ask? We can’t really put our finger on it, it just is. The people, the feeling, the atmosphere, the buildings….we don’t know, but we just like it better. Not to say that Seoul wasn’t an incredible experience, though. Seoul was like the best night of your life. Busan, on the other, similar-looking hand, was like the best night of your life, and then waking up to pancakes.

We got up early as shit to catch the 6:00a train to Busan. Well, we hella missed that one. Good thing there was a 6:25. We just barely made it to that. The train took off before we could even sit down. Phew!

Driving through Korea was pretty damn boring. I was asleep for most of it, but in my spots of consciousness I remember being unimpressed by my glances out the window. Hence, no pictures.

We arrived at Busan train station pretty confused. We were sleep deprived, and didn’t know a lick of Korean. Plus it was raining, and neither of us owned an umbrella.

Come to think of it, David and I had been searching for the past few days for a freaking umbrella to no avail. Scouring the train station revealed empty promises of umbrella holders, but no umbrellas for sale, until we chanced across a tiny convenience store. UMBRELLAS HOLY SHIT I screamed. There was hardly a selection, but you’re damn right I bought the ugly yellow one without question. It was the smallest so I thought it would be the cheapest. It was the most expensive, of course, but no one tells you that until you’re at the register and the shopkeeper is punching in a random price into the machine. Shit. Oh, and the umbrella cut me after its first use.

Oh well, at least its yellow.

We clumsily worked our way though the Korean train stations, not knowing any Korean at all. It took us 3 hours to complete a 45 minute journey to Ryan’s house. We are pretty stupid travelers. Oh well who cares! Check his damn apartment out! Its tits.

The pictures doesn’t convey in the least how badass his pad is. Everything you could possibly want and need are so neatly organized in various drawers and cabinets, including a built-in fridge. Although it doesn’t show in the picture, his place is spotless. And….what a view! (The hell? I didn’t take any good pictures of his view? Oh well….trust me, its freaking sweet).

Ryan wouldn’t be home from work for about 7 hours, so David and I set off for explorationville!

The part of Busan we were in struck us a quite interesting. It was developed, city-style, but…not quite all the way? There were towering buildings with tons of shops, eateries, and PC-bongs inside, but the buildings seemed pretty sparse, with respect to Seoul. It was an interesting vibe.

Being hungry (like, ALL OF THE TIME), we ran for the nearest convenience store to fuel our mid-day adventure. I found a crazy bag of cheetos, hot and spicy? Who the fuck can resist that? I will never turn down a bag of hot chips.

I had such wild fantasies going as I waited to purchase the bag of sweet unyielding bliss. I mean, you’ve got cheetos, in Korea, hot and spicy, what could go wrong?

Well, turns out just about everything. That bag sucked. Never fucking buy those chips, I’m serious. They’re crap. They’re shit. They’re worse than hot vomit. And I ate them anyways.

During our mid-day adventure around Ryan’s house, David and I came across a hiking trail of some sorts. So we climbed. And climbed and climbed and climbed. David, with a bag of donuts in his mouth, and I with a bag of terrible cheetos, hiked up this trail to the top, where we found exercise equipment and old people! We felt like such hypocrites hiking around while eating junk food, but anyways….what a badass idea! The trail, the equipment, all public use, beautiful scenery, and close to many homes. What fun!

Hmm, this story is dragging on a bit, huh? Allow me to get to the fun stuff. David and I explored the rest of the day, going to shops here and there, blah, blah, not that interesting yes? Well, Ryan came home at 7, hungry. We? Were starving. What’s a man to do with such pains in Korea? Oh yeah. SAMGYEOPSAL!

Dude. We feasted. We ate so much meat and garlic and lettuce and sauces. MMMM!! Oh yeah, and there’s a proper way to pour, receive, and drink your drinks in Korea, did you know? In Korea,

1) you never pour your own drink

2) only finish your drink if you want to keep on drinking

3) never fill a partially full glass

4) the more you fill a person’s glass, the more you love them

5) to pour a drink, use both hands, one to hold the bottle, the other resting underneath your forearm

6) to receive a drink, tilt your glass in the direction of the pourer, and receive with two hands

We ate until we exploded. Sonofabitch that was a good meal.

And now, the finale.

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After the great feast, with stomachs full of joy, we set off for the beach, uh….like pirates, ahoy!

The beauty was grand, the city was bright, but we did not know, Ryan’s plans for the night.

To tell you the truth, roman candles we bought, to light up the sky, or so we thought.

It started off pure, and harmless you see, until all out war, broke out on the three.

And as always, here are the dailies

Korea - Day 7

I’m going to miss you, Korea…

Explosions in the sky, Korea - Day 7