Maekju = Beer: Way back in Busan.

In what seems to be my somewhat unsuccessful and never-ending quest to keep this blog updated, I'm rewinding back to May when a few mates and I decided to spend a long-weekend in the south-eastern city of Busan. Busan is the second biggest city in Korea and is strikingly different to what I have seen Seoul and it's surrounds. For starters, it's on the coast (but sadly, it was much too cold to swim that weekend - booo), and it is not nearly as modern or affluent as most of Seoul appears to be. The people in Busan are renown for being incredibly friendly - and certainly lived up to that reputation when we were there... anyway, the point is that Busan and Seoul are totally different- and very fun.

In our mighty wisdom, we decided to take a night bus from our local inter-city bus terminal in Suwon... and in even mightier wisdom, we thought it was a good idea to include alcohol in this plan.... so we met at the Now bar for a few pre-drinks, then headed to the bus station armed with bottles of soju for our 1.30 am departure. Note to self and anyone who cares to listen - don't liquor up before a 5 hour bus ride... particularly when the bus doesn't have a toilet.

After a sleepless bus ride (due to mild motion/alcohol seedy-ness and an extreme exercise in bladder control) we arrived in Busan around 6 am.... What does one do in Busan at 6 am when one is hung-over and severely sleep deprived?? Yes, one goes to the fish market...

Among an array of interesting sea creatures, we found these... I have no idea what they are, but I know what the look like!! Worse still, they squirm around in the buckets - gross, gross, gross.

A street of dried fish stalls - if only you could capture the smell in photos...

After our little tour of ye-olde-stinky-fish-market we headed to Gwangalli beach to find a hotel for the weekend. After walking around attempting to secure a cheap room (and consequently discovering that our combined Korean skills were incredibly poor), we settle on this little number....

Yah, it's what's known as a 'Love' motel... not quite as dodgy as it sounds (although I do believe it is possible to rent rooms by the hour), but a good option for a cheap, secure and relatively comfy hotel option in Korea. The above picture features Claire, sporting the 'Hers' bathrobe on the frightfully fluffy pink bed we were to share for the weekend....

We decided to skip a much needed nap in our new digs and headed to the Busan Aquarium instead (it was raining on and off all day - plus we were apparently really into fish that day...) After a wild ride on the aquarium's 3D extravaganza, we check out the famous Haeundae beach - which proved to be bitterly cold and windy so we headed back to the motel to freshen up before heading out for dinner and a night on the town... the next morning when we made it back to our motel again it was 8am - marking 48 hours without a wink of sleep.... shouldda been a barocca ad if you ask me.

Day #2 we dragged our weary bodies up the Busan tower - the views were purdy. We also checked out the infamous Texas street (home to hookers, hustlers, dodgy folk and sexy-bars aplenty) and then onto dinner before stumbling across a soju hof (a soju bar of sorts). This place was awesome! It was huge an we were the only foreigners in the whole place - which made us quite the novelty for the local patrons.

Over the course of the night we were lucky enough to witness 3 or 4 Korean birthday parties with the special twist that only this particular soju hof seems to offer... basically it goes like this; birthday girl is presented with a cake. bartenders perform some impressive bottle-twirling with the grand finale involving a heavily shaken bottle of champagne. Bottle is opened and champagne goes everywhere. Girl is instructed to down a glass of champagne - if she does, she is given the bottle to drink at her leisure, if she refuses, the entire bottle is poured on her head. Sheer hilarity (particularly as the Korean girls are incredibly, erm, attentive to their appearance).

Arriving back at Gwangalli beach about half an hour early for sun-rise, we killed some time with a few little pieces of merchandise we purchased from the fire-works stalls set up along the beach (yes - legal and yes - street vendors at 5 am... it's just the Korean way).

Matchy-matchy... my love for trying to capture couple's outfits will never cease.

Our last day was taken up with hung-over attempts to find an adequately greasy breakfast before heading back to the bus station to catch our toilet-less bus home.