Episode 53: Busan Day 6

On Monday, January 11th, Ji-hyun took me to get a $6 hair cut, and also to see Haeundae beach for the last time. As this was my last day in Busan, Jeong-pil and Yeon-gyeong came over for dinner and to say good-bye.

Yet another great part of living in Korea is the cost of cutting hair. I found a barber's shop in my home town upon returning to Canada that gave hair cuts for men for $15, and I have Korean friends in Canada who refuse to have their hair cut because of the exorbitant price of doing so. What we need in Canada now is a National Haircutting Plan.

(You can never have too many pictures of Haeundae Beach.)

(You can also never have too many videos of Haeundae Beach.)

Episode 52: Busan Day 5

On Sunday, January 10th, I woke up in Jeong-pil’s house, just outside of Busn, after Ji-hyun and I had spent the night there. When I exited my room, I found Jeong-pil’s fiancé hard at work making an incredible “fusion” breakfast - as Jeong-pil called it.

The breakfast consisted of the traditional Korean side dishes like kimchi, rice, and yellow bean sprouts. However, it also contained a delicious fruit salad with red and green peppers, apples, tangerines and some other fruit, mixed together in a pineapple sauce; and there was also a green pumpkin (smaller than the orange variety) hollowed out, then filled with mushrooms, some meat (probably beef), with some other vegetables, which had all been cooked together like this and then topped with melted cheese.

(Fusion breakfast'd! Oddly enough, Jeong-pil didn't like it.)

After breakfast I sat down to watch some TV, and Yeon-gyeong (Jeong-pil’s fiancé) made me some delicious, freshly-juiced apple/carrot concoction. This was then chased with a homemade apple tea. Both were delicious.

The show I was watching on the telly that morning featured a group of young Korean men, called “The Dream Team,” travelling around Vancouver/Whistler, trying a number of Olympic sports and challenges. It was obviously a promo for that TV station’s upcoming coverage of the Winter Olympics, but it was also rather interesting from a cultural perspective.

The members of The Dream Team proceeded to dance, scream, fall down, and generally make a hash of whatever sport they were trying to do (not necessarily on purpose). As I watched, I wasn’t sure what it was that I was feeling. It could have been embarrassment for The Dream Team, or it could have been the bitter taste of indignation at seeing such buffoonery in my home country. However, I soon remembered all the times a Canadian comedian has traveled to another country during the Olympics to make a fool of himself on TV for the entertainment of Canadian viewers, not to mention all the Western English teachers here who tend to make a mockery of Korean customs on a regular basis, and that helped put things in a different perspective.

After we had packed up, Jeong-pil drove us out to one of the easterly most points in Korea. I'm not sure exactly what the name of the place is, but it was definitely a popular destination, and a giant mail box and tiger existed as if to show evidence of that.

(See the mail box? You don't get to build something that big unless you're already a big deal. Right? I mean, it's not like a town would build a giant statue of an animal or other object just to attract tourists unless the tourists already wanted to come there. Everyone knows that.)

(Apparently you can push letters in the small slot at the bottom. I'm not sure if they actually get sent anywhere though.)

(Psst... Jeong-pil, Ji-hyun, don't look behind you...)

After soaking in the fresh sea air (I had forgotten how pollution free air tasted by this point), Jeong-pil, Ji-hyun and sat in one of myriad cafes lining the parking lot. These cafes were basically wood shacks, with a plastic tent attached to them. However, despite the less than five-star interiors, at the Black Cat Cafe where we ate, the hot chocolate was some of the best in Korea (and I know my hot chocolates) so I was filled with a deep satisfaction.

(Cafes by the sea.)

After our snack, we all went to Yonggungsa - a temple in north-east Busan. Unlike most temples in Korea, which are built high in the mountains (to protect them from Japanese invaders bent on arson), Yonggunsa is built right beside the sea. Hopefully my pictures will say a thousand words for me, because I seem to be having trouble sufficiently describing the experience in my own words.

(This is a big Buddha statue. A normal person's head would come up to around the its toes.)

(Ha! You didn't believe me, did you?)

(In the bottom of the picture is a stone bowl, on the lower terrace. I'm not sure why, but many people were attempting to throw coins in it. It probably means they'll have a son, who in turn won't be able to get married because every other couple threw a stone in a bowl to get a son too.)

(Looking down from the top of the temple.)

Episode 51: Busan Day 4

In the 7th Century AD King Taejong Muyul of the Silla Dynasty used to practice his archery in a forest on an island near the East Sea. On Saturday, January 9th, 2010, Ji-hyun and I walked through the same forest on the same island, now called Taejongdae.

The obvious highlight of Taejongdae is the magnificent white light house, and the cliffs on which you can walk, to get as close to the sea as good sense will allow. I of course, walked out on the cliffs, but I also attempted to get an even better view of the sea by walking to the top of the light house. Unfortunately, once I got there my view was obstructed by the dirty safety glass keeping me from jumping over the rail and killing myself and so alas, the best view of the sea and Oryukdo - a collection of five islands that sometimes look like six, depending on the level of the water, hence the name, which means “five or six islands” – is only from the cliffs beside the light house.

(The lighthouse at Taejongdae, complete with old man waiting to take your picture on a Polaroid camera.)

(Another view of the lighthouse, from below. The red hoop with the needle sticking out of it has a placard describing the meaning of the structure. However, like all representative art, it made absolutely no sense.)

(The cliffs.)

(One of the many stunning views from the cliffs around the lighthouse.)

(The rainbow tent on the rock at the bottom of the picture is home to a restaurant which I assume sells fresh fish caught from the sea right beside it. At one point a wave was so big it came crashing over the edge of the rock and covered about half the top. It's tough to tell from the image, but everything on this rock is actually raised up to avoid getting soaked when this happens.)

After touring all of Taejongdae Park with Ji-hyun, Jeong-pil picked us up, and we drove to another beautiful cliff area called Igidae Park. Igidae is perhaps even more scenic and peaceful than the famous Taejongdae, but because there’s no lighthouse, very few people come to visit. (Even Jeong-pil had to admit that despite its beauty, this was the first time he had ever been to Igidae.) Come to think of it, the fact that no one goes to Igidae is probably the reason it is so scenic and peaceful, so I shouldn't complain too much. After visiting all the major cliffs of Busan, we drove back home for a raw-fish dish called sashimi. (Sorry, it was too dark by this time to get any decent pictures.)

I had first eaten sashimi during my visit to the Ulsan area back in April/May. At that time, I had already eaten a few crabs and three other sea food courses, so when the giant platter of raw fish came I just didn’t have the stomach room left to down too many of the large rubber-like fillets without first half cooking them in my bowl of maeuntang.

This time though, the cuts were much smaller and so I was able to wrap them with garlic and other sauces in ssam (any lettuce-like food stuff used for wrapping other food stuffs) thus adding some much needed “oomph” to what I can only describe here as small, cold, pink pillows, with the "chew-ability" of a pencil eraser, but containing much less flavour. In one of the great mysteries of Korea though, despite my relative aversion to sashimi, most Koreans (especially those from the Busan area) can't get enough of it. Considering Korea is the home of that most delicious of dishes - bulgolgi, the fact that more than zero people would rather eat raw, tasteless fish is something I'll never understand.

Episode 50: Busan Day 3

On Friday, January 8, Ji-hyun planned to show me Haeundae beach, the most famous beach in Busan. She told me it would take about 30 minutes, but it ended up taking about an hour.

Once we arrived, and after having some lunch, we explored Haeundae. Because it was winter, we more or less had the beach to ourselves like at Gwangalli the day before.

(Long time readers will recognize the hill and buildings of Haeundae beach from my visit here back in March.)

(Waves crashing onto Haeundae beach.)

(Even the buildings behind Haeundae are beautiful. Notice the blue colour on this building and the interesting architecture. You won't find either of those things in Seoul - the city of '60s-era Soviet-style apartment buildings.)

My last time visiting Haeundae beach was back in March, and because I was frantically searching for the shark diving course at the time, I failed to realise how peaceful and therapeutic the crashing of the waves against the shore can be, which is something I'll be looking forward to enjoying more if I return to Busan again. What I also failed to realise is that not every wave crashes into the beach with the same momentum, which can give some tourists a nasty shock if they're not prepared (see video below).

After I got my shoes soaked, we walked over to the nearby Nurimaru APEC House. "Nurimaru" translates to "world summit," and the Nurimaru APEC House on Dongbaek "island" (it's more of a peninsula) was a building built specifically for the 2005 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit. The building and location were stunningly beautiful, but you can see that for yourself from the pictures.

(The Nurimaru APEC House. Home of the 2005 APEC Summit.)

(One of my favourite pictures from the whole trip. You can see the famous, on my blog at least, buildings of Haeundae beach in the back ground, a ferry-like boat that made regular trips past this point, but seemed to move more seagulls than people, and a solitary fisherman enjoying the beautiful weather and waves on his own rock.)

(Nurimaru was easily accessible from Haeundae and vice versa. Here Ji-hyun and I cross a small swinging bridge.)

(The famous Mermaid of Dongbaek Island.)

By this time we were getting a bit hungry again, so Ji-hyun suggested we go get a waffle at a cafe called BeansBins. I was expecting a $1 "dutch taco" style of waffle like I was used to buying in Seoul, but at BeansBins waffle creation is taken to a new level. It's not cheap though, as this elaborate looking, mediocre tasting waffle costs around $11.

(An $11 waffle. I wish I could say it tastes as good as it looks.)

After supper, Ji-hyun's brother, Jeong-pil, came over and we went to the nearby Shinsegae department store. The Shinsegae department store was completed in early 2009, at which time it became the largest department store in the world (taking over first place from the Macy's store in New York). While I have been to a number or large department stores in Korea already (Lotte and Hyundai), and I generally find nothing of interest inside, this department store was different. This department store, Shinsegae (literally, "new world") had a massive jjimgilbang called Spaland.

In the past I had limited all of my Korean bathing experiences to the Hamilton Spa in Itaewon. While the tubs there were as nice as any, it lacked the massive size and ridiculous amenities of the jjimjilbangs I had read about in books about Korea. Not Spaland though. Spaland is the Mecca of jjimjilbangs.

In Spaland, there are two floors featuring a great many different "relaxation rooms." There was the Pyramid Room, whose four walls were tapered to a point designed to focus ones energy. There was the Fomentation Room, which seemed to me to just be a room that was really warm, and induced a light sweat. There was a "Cold" Room, whose temperature was 13 degrees centigrade (not quite freezing, when you consider the temperature outside was around 2 degrees). There were rooms that had walls made of yellow ocher, and rooms made of charcoal. There were rooms that played relaxing sounds, and rooms that projected images of waves onto the ceiling and walls, and many more rooms. There were just many rooms.

While all the rooms listed above, along with those I did not list, were described as having some special effect on the body - like de-acidifying the internal organs - I can't imagine anything being more effective at relaxing the mind and body as just sitting in one room and lying down to have a nap or to meditate. However, it seemed like most of the people (including myself) felt pressured to rush from room to room to get the "whole experience," subsequently receiving no experience at all.

After exploring all the rooms, Jeong-pil and I went to the baths section to experience the real reason to come to a jjimgilbang: the baths. As I had said about the experience of jumping back and forth between 49 degree centigrade water to 13 degree water and back to 49 degree water again on my first visit to Korea: it is invigorating.

Actually, invigorating doesn't even begin to describe the sensation. In April of 2009 I had run a mountain half-marathon in Seoul. After that race I went to my usual sauna at he Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon. While I would have normally been hobbling around for a few days after a race like a mountain half-marathon, the Korean sauna helped prevent almost all of the normally occurring DOMS (that muscle stiffness and pain you feel after exercising) in the next two days. But I digress...

At the Spaland baths, there were also a number of steam rooms of varying temperatures that made the Fomentation Room seem like a joke. I'm frankly not sure why the relaxation rooms even exist, when you can go to the baths section and sit in the the 80 degree centigrade Swedish Sauna.

Admittedly, the Swedish Sauna room was so hot that the wood floors and benches scorched my skin after less than 3 seconds of contact. That may have something to do with the lack of people I saw when I went in... and then immediately back out again. After hopping around on my toes a few times I had to exit and run for the cold tub to soothe my burning feet.

At this point it was midnight, and Spaland was closed. It was definitely an experience, and I can see why many young Korean couple go here for dates (you can hang around all day and the owner doesn't give you a dirty look if you don’t buy anything else after you come in). That said, I found the overwhelming amount of choice of rooms to be... well, overwhelming. What I really want to do when I come to the sauna is, come in, build up a sweat in the steam room, and then jump back and forth between a hot and cold pool a few times. For this reason I prefer the simple, more traditional saunas, to these... (insert shuddering here) spas.

I know what you’re thinking now, and that's okay, because Hank Hill has an answer for you: “yes, (I’m) ‘old fashioned.' Old fashioned as in good!”