Today, Christina and I hopped a morning train to Busan. We arrived at noon and checked into our hotel in the Nampo area, near the gukje market and the Lotte Department Store. We dropped off our bags and ran to Lotte to catch the aquatique show and have some lunch in the food court.
Lunch was at a place called Curry Pot. I had omurice...I will admit that I had no idea what it would be when I ordered it..but it looked good! Turns out it was an Omelet wrapped around RICE (hence omurice!) it also came with a piece of tonkatsu wrapped around a sweet potato....see a theme here? I was clearly surprised by both items on my plate! The dish was swimming in a Japanese curry, so I'm assuming Curry Pot is some Japanese chain.
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| T-Rex does NOT hate omurice! |
After lunch we decided to go up the Busan Tower to check out the view. Christina really loves getting the lay of the land from above. Last time I was in Busan, I went up at night, so it was cool to see the daytime vantage.
Before going up, we went into a small tourist shop near the base of the tower to bask in some free air conditioning. One of the vendors here swindled Christina into two packets of face lotion masks by telling her not to buy certain products because they were only for older people, and she was too beautiful to need that..."no no, not that one, that only for your mommy! You too beautiful!" Man, she knew how to play Christina! Consequently, if you're in Korea, and a beauty store vendor pushes some red ginseng products on you, you should feel insulted...or extra "mommy"-like anyway!
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| While functionally helpful, this outdoor escalator tube was a breezeless oven! |
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Buddha en route to the Busan Tower. Korea is so colorful!
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| Busan Tower |
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| Busan from above - Lotte Tower under construction |
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| Lots of ships! |
After the tower we hopped the subway across town to Haeundae Beach where we caught a bus to Yonggungsa Temple (용궁사). This temple is unique because its situated on the coast, not up in the mountains like most in Korea. I think it's my favorite temple in Korea! It may not be as stately as Bulguksa in Gyeongju, but it's one-of-a-kind location catches your eye!
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Entryway pagoda...we could use one of these back in Atlanta!
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Yonggungsa
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Yonggungsa
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Super Korean-looking Buddha
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Main Temple - Yonggungsa
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Intricate -Yonggungsa
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Korea definitely catches your eye - Yonggungsa
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Yonggungsa
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Bonus Dragon - Yonggungsa
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Hi Pigs!
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Bye Pigs!
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You knew this was happening - Yonggungsa
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After the temple, we took a stroll down Haeundae Beach then caught a cab back to our hotel in Nampo. The cab driver went over the main large bridge across the bay and we could see the entire city wrapped in twilight and fog. Busan is a very scenic place! He also gave me pronunciation lessons on everything I said to him in Korean. After a couple years of on-and-off effort at learning Korean, it seems I'll never get the hang of it. Then again, I'm not sure if I should be taking pronunciation lessons from someone from Busan....
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Haeundae Beach
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Everything in Korea has a mascot!
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After we got back to the hotel, we walked around the gukje market for a while. We both bought some souvenirs and hit up Paris Baguette for...you guessed it...Bingsu!
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Don't judge...you knew this would happen! It was my dinner!
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We have no plans yet for tomorrow, but after what feels like about 10 miles of walking today, I'm hoping to sleep in. Our hotel in Seoul, while nice, had poor air conditioning and the hardest beds I've ever slept on, which is saying a lot considering how many Korean beds I've tried. The place we're staying at in Busan lets us make the room an ice cube and has almost America-level soft beds. Ahhhhh..... zzzzzzzz
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