Be cool about fire safety, among other things

Wednesday
About a week and a half ago my dad made the trip to Korea and arrived Wednesnight. He was the last of our overseas visitors, and it was great to see him. Incidentally, if you ever need a pick me up a great place to people watch is at the international arrivals gate. Everyone's all smiles and welcome homes and hugs and happy tears. Dad was detained by swine flu checking just long enough for Brian to meet us at the airport, and then we were off for great things - namely, sleep after Dad's 25 hour journey.
Thursday
My school had a 2 day 1 night field trip on Thursday and Friday, so there were no classes and they were wonderful enough to let me have the time off to spend with Dad. So Thursday poor Brian geared up for school while Dad and I took off in the rain to visit the UN cemetery and the Busan Museum for an indoor sort of day. Then Dad had his first Korean meal: spicy tiny octopi. It was a great success. But jet lag inevitably took it's toll and we went home for naps until Brian got off school. That night we made it out again to the pajeon and makulli whole in the wall that we've loved ever since we arrived.

Dad was looking skeptical when the plate of tofu arrived, but he did like the pajeon and makulli. We tucked in early that night for the day to come, but not before a stop over in the arcade. Dad fell for the drum games at first drum roll.

Friday
Friday I was off again, and Brian went off to school again as Dad and I got packed up for a trip to Gyeongju, the old Korean capital during the Shilla Dynasty. We hopped on a bus and rented some bikes on arrival for a biking tour of the city. We went first to the burial mounds park where kings' tombs are enclosed in large mounds of rock, soil, and grass.

Next up was the oldest astronomical observation tower in all of East Asia. It was there we met Paul, an English muffin who saved us from our terrible self portraits in front of the tower with a proper picture. I thought he might be an English teacher from Busan because he was on our bus, but it turned out that he's just a guy ramblin round the world for a few years. Sounds like just the right thing to do.

The two Pauls and I had lunch together before Dad-Paul and I began the trek home. Getting back to Pusan we visited a bath house. I wasn't sure how much Dad would like it, but I think he was thoroughly impressed.

It was after the bath house that we discovered the whale meat district of Seomyeon, and Dad discovered the scrumptiousness of Korean barbecue. We even got free soju from the soju promoters. Those pictures are somewhere further down in this post.
Saturday
Saturday we finally got to play with Brian too. We got up and out and on a bus to Taejongdae, the much recommended but previously unvisited seaside park. It was lovely, but it was a long ride. Besides all of the lush greenery and beautiful seaside cliffs, there were vats of bondegi (a silk worm larvae (or possibly pupae)) for sale. And we got Dad to try one. In fact, we found a can of them for him to take home to spread the delicacies your way. Here he is with his bug before he eats it.

After Taejongdae we went to Jagalchi, the largest seafood market in Korea. Imagine a marine invertebrate specialist in a market full of spineless maritime squiglers - like a kid in a squirmy candy shop. Here he is admiring the things he never thought you could eat before this trip. But Jagalchi doesn't only have live fish and friends for sale; there's also a large dried market. Here are heaps of dried fishes of all shapes and sizes.
And below, the street market scene. It's a little grimy, but not as smelly as you might imagine.
That night we dined in the market place and followed up with hodducks, a chinese derived snickerdoodle on butter steroids. Dad got hooked when we mainlined a couple when we got back to Busan's bus station the day before.

Sunday
Sunday it was chilly and threatening rain, so we went to the Busan Aquarium for more aquatic delights. There are more fish photos than necessary because I got excited about the aquarium setting on my camera. It made this seahorse look like it came straight out of The Life Aquatic.
We tooled around Haeundae Beach for a bit before catching another bus to a seaside temple we'd been wanting to visit. This temple is unique for a couple of reasons. 1. Most temples are built on the mountain sides, this one on seaside cliffs. 2. This temple is dedicated to Avalokitsvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion, or in more western terms, the goddess of mercy. She is often shown riding on a dragon, and thus there are many dragon images at this temple, which are absent at others. For some very good reason unknown to us, there were also these two plump, jolly pigs at the temple.

There was also a plump, jolly Buddha statue.
This dragon is a painting on the outer wall of one of the temple structures.
This dragon decorates the rafters of the main temple hall.

These cairns dotted the cliffs outside the temple walls.
And the rest of the aquarium and temple photos are in the following slide show.

Monday I finally had to report back to school. But I only had 3 classes and got to leave at 12, so Dad and I had time to take a short hike up Geumjeongsan, a nearby mountain with a fortress wall (much talked about in this blog). We had lunch and got some snacks to take with us and then cruised up to some perches with nice lookouts. It was the first time I'd been there during working hours on a weekday and it was phenomenally more tranquil without the crowds.

Tuesday was our volleyball semifinals at school, so though I didn't get to leave early, Sun Ja and I picked Dad up at the apartment and he got to come to the games. It was a double header and we won the first game and lost to the second team we played. But the first team had our old pal Sunny playing, and Kyung Mi my co teacher from the school I no longer teach at was there too. It was fun to see old friends and for Dad to get to meet the people I work with.

We went to dinner with the school after the game, but after that Brian came and met us and all of the young teachers for drinks and a night on the town. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures that night because the camera was dead. But it was fun to have all my favorite teachers meet Dad and Brian. They even taught us some new Korean drinking games, and of course, the night ended at the norebang (or kareoke room). Yes, Dad sang too.

Wednesday was Dad's last day in Korea, and he came to school with me to meet the kids. He even co taught with me a bit in a roll play we performed for the kids. It was 6th and 5th grade that day, and I wasn't sure how well they'd respond because they're just at the cusp of teenager hood. But they were all so excited to meet him and wanted to compare their hand sizes and arm hair. They all said "he's so handsome guy!". My co teacher got some photos of us in action which I'll try to get hold of to post later.

After school we got to leave early. We relaxed at home and had Korean style tea til Brian came home. Then we started our snacking tour of Korea. We had to fit in as many foods as possible in a short amount of time before going to see the night view of the bridge at Gwangan Li. We all performed admirably.

Once on the beach we found it chilly, so in we went to Russel Crowe bar to have a last night of talk before the departure. These are all the photos Dad took on his last day in Korea.

And these are all of the miscellaneous photos of food and drink and night scenes that didn't fit elsewhere.


I think this final photo of Dad really sums up how he felt about his entire Korean experience. Pretty fantastic.

He left Thursday morning, but Thursday afternoon at school was exciting enough to make it into this post. All of a sudden in the middle of my after school class fire alarms and sirens start going off (and didn't stop for an hour) and all the kids run to the windows. I can't understand the announcements being made, so I check out the window scene. Lo and behold, there's a fire in the middle of the school yard, but an intentional fire, an instructional fire. There's a fire truck and kids getting to use fire extinguishers to try to put out the flames (unsuccessfully; the fire hose was used in the end).

As you can see from these photos, these kids really know how to be cool about fire safety. I should know, as I consider myself a semi-expert on the subject of fire safety because I had to take a course at Furman for a dorm violation involving candles and string lights.

And speaking of fire safety, if you're reading this to waste time, I highly recommend this video. It's hilarious and informative. And if you enjoy it, you should really check out the second and third parts. The second part features Little Richard singing about crawling out of a fire with really awfully funny PowerPoint add ins.

This weekend we mostly rested after the flurry of activity with Dad, but we managed to make it to Haeundae for the sand festival going on there. This was my favorite sand sculpture. Anti-whaling, if you can believe it after all of the whale meat we found and showed on this post.

But there were many more to gawk at. Friday was actually a cultural education day for my teachers' team, meaning that we got to leave around 1:30 for a movie and dinner and coffee. That's where the graphic image of eel heads comes from in this next slide show.

And now we've only 7 weeks left including this one before our summer vacation. We're not sure how much time we've got off at this point, but depending on that crucial bit of information we may go to Mongolia or Indonesia. Either way, we will definitely go to Beijing for a few days. We've got 4 months left on our contracts, but it feels like our time here is already running out. We're trying to fit in any last experiences while we plan our next adventures. It's all so exciting!

Mom and Frank at large in Korea

About a week and half ago Mom and Frank flew in to Pusan to visit for a week. These are the tales of their time here.

Friday the travelers were wiped from their agonizingly long flight, so we checked them into the hotel, had some dinner and caught up a bit before tucking them in for the night. Their first Korean meal was a great success, and the view from their hotel room (30 USD/night) was priceless. They brought us lots of goodies including a new camera to replace our busted one. Thanks Mom and Grandma! It's great!

Saturday they were still pretty tired, but they were troopers. We went first to Beomosa where Shannon and Ryan met up with us as we cruised around the temple grounds. Then we were off to Dongnae to meet David and Duck and have some of the famous pajeon and makulli from that area. This got 2 thumbs up from both Mom and Frank. Here are some of my favorite temple sites.

After all the delicacies, we tromped on to the Oncheonjang hot spring foot baths where 8 waygooks garnered quite a lot of attention. We soaked for a while and nearly put Mom and Frank to sleep, so we all split up and the visitors came to our apartment to see the neighborhood and have a nap. But they were up again for dinner and a visit to one of our favorite little bars where they still remember us for our infamous Halloween escapades. Every time they see us they all say "Oh! Halloween Day!".

Sunday we went for a hike up to what might be the prettiest place in Pusan, Geumjeongsanseong. I think this might have been Mom and Frank's favorite part of the trip, but you'd have to ask them.

After the hike and picnic we went to check out the famous Dr. Fish we'd heard so much about. There are some pictures in the above slide show, but you don't really get the full effect til you see the following video of Mom's reaction to the pedicure that consists of little fish eating the dead flesh off your feet. It's creepy at first, extremely tickly the whole time, but eventually feels kind of good once you get used to it. It was sort of a feet filled weekend.

Contrary to what you might think after watching this video, Mom actually enjoyed the fish pedicure and ended up staying in the tubs longer than any of us.

Monday I had to go to school, so the waygooks had a chance to relax after the whirlwind weekend we put them through. But thanks to all the wonderful changes that have taken place at my school since the new school year, my great new Principle and Vice Principle gave me the afternoons after class off! I met up with them at 12 and took them to Nampodong to explore and have a raw fish (like Sashimi, called hoe) dinner at Jagalchi with Yun Jae and Mi Yun and all our waygook chingus. They were brave to eat some of the raw creatures they ate, and we had a lot of fun with all of our friends together.

Tuesday they came to school with me! Tuesday is all third grade classes,which means all the cutest kids come to the English Room. My 6th graders the next day were very upset they didn't get to meet them. That night Sun Ja, my new coteacher, took us out to Vietnamese dinner and up to Huryeong Mountain to see the view of the city, and eventually to her home to see Korean home life. At that point I'd known Sun Ja for about 5 days. She's so sweet and great. Hooray for Sun Ja! These are some of my favorites from those couple of days. They're both views from Mom and Frank's hotel room.


And the rest of the photos.

Wednesday I got off early again and Mom and I went to a sauna, which here means a big fancy bath house, usually with many different saunas as we know them in the west. I was a little disappointed at first because there were only 4 baths and it wasn't as nice as many I've seen before, but then we signed up for the "minimassage" and it blew both our minds. I'd seen women being scrubbed down by the sauna workers before, but I thought we were getting a 30 minute massage. It turned out to be an hour of intense exfoliation that nearly drew blood followed by the most painful massage of my life, but also included a facial and a moisture treatment. They even washed our hair and massaged our scalps. It's sounds kind of terrible, and it was kind of, but at the same time afterwards I was limp I was so relaxed. And I don't think either of us have ever had skin so smooth.

That night Yun Jae and Mi Yeon met us for drinks before we had to say goodbye. But Yun Jae offered to pick Brian and I up in the morning to see off the padres so Thursday morning was our official goodbye. I'm so glad Mom and Frank got to come and it got me excited for all the other visitors coming our way soon. Since then we've been up to all kinds of miscellaneous activity. At school I was asked to decorate a green board in the classroom one day when classes were cancelled. I had so much fun making it; I miss crafting things and it felt good to do it again.
Then this past weekend we had a night at the arcade where you can take these fantastically absurd photos and dress them up with obscene amounts of pink and glitter and sparkle. It's amazing.
I decorated Smile Days and Everlasting Miracle For You, Duck did Twins Sweet Love.


You can also sing kareoke and ride ponies at the arcade. It's a magical place.Saturday we met a lot of new teachers in town at a St. Patrick's Day celebration, and Sunday we went to the opening game of the Pusan I Park team's soccer season. The game ended in a draw, but it was fun and not well attended so it was cheap and we could get close.

And that's what we've been up to. Now that things are settling down with the new semester I should be more regular on posts. Check out the Konglish blog too, there are some new prizes there.

Jess

Live octopus is easier than smelt

The Monday after our temple stay we went to meet up with Shannon and Ryan in Nampo Dong, a big shopping area near Jagalchi fish market. To the left is what we found there. A lady and her look-a-like dog. Yes, that dog's wearing socks as well as shoes. And pants. And a jacket.

We wandered and wondered for a while before coming to the point of it all, which was sashimi (called hoe pronounced hway in S. Korea) dinner at Jagalchi. Brian and I had experienced this delight once before, but we had a new mission. Find the best of the Jagalchi restaurants, and eat a live octopus. San nakji is live baby octopus, though it's not really alive when you eat it. We found that the live smelt we ate in Inje was not very common and many Koreans were amazed or horrified that we'd done it. But san nakji is very popular.

Apparently, so is sea slug. They looked charred but maybe they were just dried out. That's them on the pink plate in the picture below.

It took us a lot of talking and even more tenacity, but eventually we found an ajumoni (endearing term for middle aged Korean woman) willing and able to grant our wishes. She was the first to bring out the little octopus with a knife instead of a plastic bag of water. She filled up a Styrofoam of spicy sauce and chopped the little guys legs into bite size bits and let us dig in. Behold.

Shannon's got some videos I'll post when I get them from her, for now just stills. It was squirmy wormy but much easier than the smelt, and more delicious I think. It's little suckers were so small though that when it grabbed your cheek or tongue it felt like you were being poked rather than pulled. All the other ajumonis were peeking out of their stalls and shouting questions to the lucky chosen one. Where are they from? Do they like it? It isn't too spicy for them? No ma'am, it's perfect. Our ajumoni even threw in a few raw oysters "service!" (that means free).

We found a sea monster octopus downstairs before dinner as well. It was enormous and the lady kept trying to get us to grab the poor thing's legs. Look at the size of those suckers! She also handed Shannon and Ryan a hapless little friend to hold.

Upstairs we were also success. It's hard to say if we found the best restaurant, but it was more and better food than the place we'd tried with David and Duck, and it was 10 bucks cheaper to boot. Below is the Jagalchi restaurant symbol. I'd say the ajumoni is amazingly accurate, but I doubt the fish are so happy. An aside: it's really common to have the food animal that a restaurant serves as a mascot for the place, usually all smiles to be your dinner. But in the US I think every attempt is made to ignore the fact that what you're eating is an animal. Strange cultural difference resulting in cute signs in Korea.

The spread our lady served was fantastic and I got her card and she memorized my name so I could call and make reservations when Mom and Frank get here. Only 3 more days!
Great job.

Jess

Seoul trip and ice fish, a winter wandering

Last Thursday we took a 4 hour bus ride to Seoul to see what it had to offer. We got there in the evening and checked in to our hostel where the nameless owner kept laughing hysterically (and what a laugh!) and play punching Brian in the belly. It was hilarious in that somewhat awkward but still absurd enough to be really funny kind of way. But we didn't stay long, we were out on the streets as soon as Mr. Laugh Attack had helped us figure out how to get to Inje on Saturday.

That night we went out with a vague idea to see the South Gate (Seoul was once a walled city) and the Seoul Tower. But when we found the South Gate it was completely enclosed in a construction wall for rebuilding. Apparently it burned down along with part of the market that flanks it sometime in the recent past. So no gate, but into the market we went and we found a little alley of soju tents. After seeing what they all had to offer, we settled on one particularly delicious looking tent. I told the woman there that we didn't eat meat, so she pulled me up to her display and showed me all the options. I said yes. So we ended up with ALL the non-meat options. It was delicious, but an expensive mistake. We had Ginkgo seeds, mushrooms, noodles, shrimp, octopus, and eel along with soju and cider (sprite). We may have been ripped off, but it was still worth it, and the two old Korean men beside us loved us and were so friendly and fun. We ended up skipping the tower too, because we'd just seen Busan tower recently and night views of cities are similar enough that we didn't feel we were missing out on anything. Somehow there are no photos of this night, except for this one from the subway. It's for you Bart, the only vinyl shop we've seen so far, but it extended for half a block in 4 directions. You could have played around in there for hours.

Back at the hostel we shared some soju with Mr. Laughing Gas and his friends before calling it a night. But the next day we were up early to see all the sites. Our first stop was the palace Changyeongung, a small-ish palace with a large garden from the Joseon Dynasty. The Joseon Dynasty was the first to call Seoul the capital of Korea, and it was the last of the Korean monarchies; the last surviving royal family member died in 1989, but Joseon rule was over long before that. Check out the slide show for more photos, but here are some Korean ducks on the frozen pond.

From the first palace we stumbled on Jongmyo shrine, which is where all the spirit tablets of past Joseon kings and queens are kept. Joseon period was when Confucianism was at its height in Korea, and this shrine is built in the unadorned Confuscian style with the purpose of performing Confucian ancestor rituals. Religion today in S. Korea is a hodgepodge of Buddhism (Shilla Dynasty), Confucianism (Joseon), Shamanism (before religion from other parts of the world trickled over), and Christianity. Everyone pays homage to their ancestors at 3 different times during the year (Confucianism), they usually visit Buddhist temples every now and then, and many people make small shrines near the seaside or mountains to pray for various aids (shamanism). Here's a view of Jongmyo shrine.

From Jongmyo we walked along until we found Jogyesa. This is the headquarters of the Jogye sect of Buddhism (the largest in Korea, emphasizes Zen style meditation) and it houses a 7 tiered pagoda that is rumored to contain some of the Sariras of Guatama Buddha Himself. As Mi Yeun once explained it to me, a sarira is like a crystal, it's not bone or another anatomical body part, but it's found in the ashes of a cremated Buddhist and in many vegetarians. I've never heard of this before coming to S. Korea, but now I want to google it. Supposedly, the more devout the Buddhist, the more sariras in their remains. Here's the placard explaining the pagoda.

And the actual pagoda.

After a quick lunch we were off to Changdeokgung, another of the Joseon palaces. The buildings in all of Seoul's palaces aren't much more than 200 years old because most of them have burned at various times. Many were burned during the Japanese occupation of Korea, so most are reconstructed. This is the lotus pavilion and universe pond in the royal gardens.

After that last palace we were wiped, so we walked to Insadong, the famous antiques and art galleries street where many traditional Korean goods are sold. There we went to Yetchapjip, an old tea house serving traditional Korean teas in a lovely old building packed with songbirds, antiques, and Korean decor. We eventually headed to a restaurant for drinks, and another for a dinner of nakji (octopus) and rice before heading back to the hostel because it was an early morning the next day.

The next day we got up early to catch a bus to Inje for the Ice fish Festival. Ice fish here means smelt, but that sounds less romantic. In Korean, smelt is bingho, and at this festival about a thousand people, plus galloping horses, snow mobiles, and tents, go out on the ice sheet of a frozen river, poke it full of holes, and use a flyswatter-like device baited with meal worms to catch these little fishies. But that's not all it has to offer, there's also ice soccer, ice sculptures, human bowling, human curling, ice sledding, and rides.

When we arrived it was much warmer than usual (I still needed seven layers, couldn't move my shoulders all day) so the snow had mostly melted but the ice sheet was intact. Without the snow it wasn't the wintry wonderland I'd envisioned, but it made the day much more fun in terms of being able to handle being on an ice sheet for 6 hours. First we cruised around, watched a game of ice soccer, saw the melted snow hill where human bowling would have been, checked out the ice sculptures and the fair grounds. Then we got some help finding lodgings for the night (that we ended up not using), and then settled into ice fish. We rented an ice sled to sit on, got some snacks and soju plus our fishing gear, found a hole somebody'd abandoned, and we were set. We had a lot of fun, and even saw some action down on our hooks, but we didn't catch anything. When we got too cold sitting, we took advantage of the fact that our chair was an ice sled. Observe.

In this next one you get to see the snow mobile rides and a galloping horse.


After we were thoroughly frozen we found a warm tent that served these mystical Icefish we saw everyone else catching. Now, there's more than one way to eat a smelt. The most common ways are fried, sauteed, and live. We tried the first and last of these. Fried was great, very easy, very dead. Live...Brian had more luck than I did, but his video's sideways.


Next I tried, but I was too timid. The taste was actually very good. No bones or guts gushing out, just fresh fish taste. You could feel the hard fins though, and it was surprisingly crunchy.

On our way back to town from the festival grounds we got a ride in a cop car. We asked a group of them where the bus stop was, and one of them told us to hop in and he'd take us. Restored my faith in the profession a bit. He was so friendly and kind. He dropped us at the bus station, but the bus to our lodging didn't leave for 2 hours, and it only takes 3 to get back to Seoul and a bus was leaving in 30 minutes for that trip. So we decided to head back to Zen hostel again. But when the bus came, it pulled up for about 30 seconds, and we were looking at it and our tickets and trying to decide when it left again. We thought it must not have been our bus, but the ticket window guy came running out chasing the bus and motioning for us to follow so Brian sprinted out in front of it to wave it down. Without further incident we made it back to Seoul.

Sunday, our last day in Seoul, we went to see some museums we'd missed on our first big excursion. We went to the Museum of Korean Buddhist Art, which was small but enlightening. They had a display of Burmese Buddhist embroidery in the temporary exhibit that was really beautiful and so detailed. Then we were off to see the National Folk Museum, which displays all sorts of anthropological artifacts and Korean antiques with explanations of traditional life in Korea. Also enlightening. Afterwards we had tea again, I had ginger tea, which is one of the Korean traditional varieties, and it was what I've always wanted tea to be. I can't wait to discover tea houses in Busan.

We caught a bus back to Busan that Sunday night in time for a cheese making, pizza baking, homebrew drinking extravaganza with Ryan and Shannon ( who we hadn't seen since we left for the Philippines) and David and Duck. It was a great reunion and perfect start to our last week of vacation. School starts back this Friday and we'll all have new coteachers. I'm looking forward to it, but I'll miss all the free time for adventuring.

January in Busan

Since we've been back in Busan we've been busy. First off was 2-3 weeks of English Camp for each of us. Around the board the consensus is - GREAT! We went in around the regular time, and we got off at 12, so we had our afternoons off. And now that it's over we have about 2 weeks of vacation again because the kids aren't back in school yet. But more about that later.

Since we've been back Brian and I have been taking care of Ryan and Shannon's rabbit, Chingu, while they're on vacation. She's been a lot of furry fun and a pain in the ass all at once. I'm glad this experience has cured me of my desire for a pet in our one room apartment. I think Brian's even more glad. There are some pictures of her in the slide show below.

Our big adventure day since we've been back was a Saturday; David, Duck, Brian and I played blackjack with coins at D and D's apartment Friday night. Then we were off to Shanghai street and Foreigners' street near Busan Station to explore. Foreigners' street used to be Texas street, but now there's so much Russian influence there that the name was changed. Most of the signs are in Russian, and the Russian mafia is known to cause trouble there from time to time. It might be the only part of Busan where you have to hold your bags close and stay clear at night (see slide show).

From Foreigners' and Shanghai we walked to Nopodong where we saw this friendly, cabbage covered lion. We also found a great street full of antiques and traditional ceramics near there.

After a coffee break it was time for the true mission of our day - sashimi (called hoe (hweyh) in Korea) dinner at Jagalchi market. This is the enormous seafood market near Nopodong, but upstairs are restaurants with a view of the harbor and delicious fresh fish. It was our Christmas gift to each other, and we ordered 2 small flounders raw and 2 small flounders fried (but not battered) along with various banchan and drinks and it was all less than 17 bucks a person. Here's the raw fish platter. Koreans usually put this in a lettuce wrap with some spicy/salty sauce, but there's also soy sauce with wasabi for dipping. It was amazing. OH, and on our way there we saw whale balene outside the market. The lady said it wasn't for eating, maybe it was just to let you know that they sell whale at those stalls. It felt like fingernails.

We milked our time at Jagalchi to enjoy the view, but once we finally left we walked through Nopodong once more on our way to Busan tower. The streets are festively lit all year round.

Half way up the escalators to the tower there was a little shop area with a traditional tea shop and these Buddhist lanterns.

And then finally, the tower. It changes colors of course. The view was pretty great with Pusan Port and a huge portion of the city visible. The glass angled out too so that you could look directly down and get dizzy, which is always fun.

Once finishing our tower observing we had to walk back through Nopodong on our way to the subway (heading to our apartment for a late night of gin rummy and rhum and cokes), and along the way we found a wig stand. Look at all those colors! And observe the slide show.

It was a great day in Busan.

Since then there's been a burrito bonanza at our place with Sunny and Yun Jae (I made pretzel appetizers but didn't think to explain the appetizer concept and Yun Jae ate 6 big ones because he thought it was the dinner I'd made, but he still managed to eat 2 burritos too), a seashore exploration at Igidae Park, and Seollal (Lunar New Year, biggest holiday in Korea) dinner at Sunny's apartment. And Brian and I just got back from a trip to Seoul. Check in soon for the post (there will be videos with gruesome footage!).