A couple weeks ago we went to a place called Andong – a traditional Korean village where they have the traditional houses and temples and stuff.  It was a nice weekend away and I made national TV! Apparently dancing with Korean locals makes you a celebrity.  The Buddhist temple was sooo pretty. It was over 600 years old, tucked away in the mountains. It wasn’t exactly a relaxing trip, but it was nice to see more traditional stuff.

The drum that the monks play is in the upstairs part of this temple.  It was so pretty and so quiet.  When we foreigners were there though, it wasn’t so quiet. It looks over the mountains and the countryside – so pretty.

The next day we went to the Traditional Korean Dance.  It was super crowded and once again, I got picked out of the crowd to dance in front of everyone.  Got some free Korean rice cakes as a prize for embarrassing myself and they were sooo good. So cute too. Shaped like the Korean masks. 

The different masks are all carved into the wood, but at the dance a different person is wearing each of the masks. They all have different parts and roles – its pretty entertaining.  The few weeks after that I just sorta worked on school work. Not much exciting happened.  Just had to make sure to keep up with work and do my projects.  But finally, last weekend we took our last trip in Korea to Busan.  I love Busan so incredibly much.  Maybe it was the people I went with, maybe it was the beach, either way it was one of the best parts of Korea. We had such a relaxing time. When we first went, it was just three of us girls.  We stayed at a youth hostel, and the guy who owned it suggested we go to a place called Gwangali Beach. It was a nice area with lots of big buildings and lights. A pretty bridge was lit up at night.  It was just really really nice to get away from Seoul.

Being on the beach was fun, but sitting at the coffee shop listening to the live jazz band that was playing across the street, just watching the ocean was so nice. It was very relaxing and just really nice.  However the next few days more and more people started coming. The whole trip was really really nice, really relaxing.  After the first group arrived, we finally went to the beach. While we were there on the first day, we met a guy who had a stand to do sea kayaking and surfing. We started talking to him to see how much it would cost, and he ended up being pretty good friends with us! Jeff was his name and he kept telling us he was the “Busan Boss”.  We got to do lots of sea kayaking and he even got us some free jet skiing 🙂 

When the last group of people was coming to meet us, we waited for them at the Busan Train Station. At night the fountain they have a show where the fountain lights up and they synchronize music to the water. It gets a big crowd and people try to walk through the water and the police come and yell. It’s really nice to sit and watch, so we did that while we waited for the last group to come.

Later that night for dinner we did the tourist thing. We went to Millak Fresh Fish Market, where you pick your fish and they cut it in front of you.  We were extremely overcharged, but it was an experience.  Not everyone wanted to try it, but I did. And thats all I did. A little too fresh for my liking.

This fish wasn’t very good in my opinion. We had one before this that tasted a little bit better when i drenched it in soy sauce.  There were some other ones that sorta looked like snails, and it was really really really hard to eat, pretty bad to look at too. So I’ll spare the photos.  

The next day after we rested a little bit, we went back to the beach.  There was a Sand Festival there, and there were huge sand castles. There was even a sand castle village!

The group who woke up early enough to see the beach before the crowds came.  We saw the sand castles and the sand statues and sculptures. Fun festival stuff.  But As it always is, I got sunburnt really quick and decided I didn’t want to get skin cancer so instead of spending the last day at the beach, we went to the Aquarium.  

Unfortunately the aquarium was not so good, and we paid 18,000 won for admission. It was part of the Busan experience though.  The whole aquarium was underground so I guess that was kinda cool, but it was just so little.  We ended the day at the Jagalchi Fish Market which is supposed to be like the worst smelling place on the planet. It didn’t smell too terrible, and it was cool to see all the different things people were selling. Except no one wanted to sell stuff to us.  We finally got someone to sell us one piece of fried fish to try, and it was pretty good actually. But she didn’t seem to happy to sell it to us. 

All of the ladies selling the fish seemed unhappy. Maybe thats why they wouldn’t sell us anything but either way it was an experience.

We came back to Seoul at 1am and I spent the whole day doing nothing. Should have been studying and doing homework but we had the day off because its Labor Day in Korea. I have my last three days of class this week, then my mom is coming to visit me this weekend with her friend! I’m really really looking forward to showing them around my “home” and letting them experience some  of the things I’ve seen and done.  Then they’ll be here for a week and then finally, it is time for me to come home. This was definitely the experience of a lifetime, but I’m really looking forward to being back home.

Love to all my family and friends! See you all soon!