부산 | Busan (Part 2)

Picking the best spot on the roof.

So in the last post I left off with us freshening up and having naps before the main event. Cool? Cool.

First of all, I'd like to share with you the slightly-creepy, incredibly-amazing joy that is a little Korean hotel/hostel/motel:

That wallpaper, man.

It looks like they went to various DIY stores, grabbed as many samples as they could, and went to town. Every wall, ceiling, and room are dressed up like this. It's so good. Apparently quite a lot of older Korean hotels are like this.

We went to find a place to eat, and the seafront was already heaving several hours before the show was due to start. Police cordoned off the pavement but people were still spilling out onto the road (which, for the most part, seemed to be closed off) to dart in and out of the stores and visit street food vendors that were dotted all the way along the beach.

We managed to find a place that seemed to specialise in tea and bingsu which sounded great, considering it was unusually warm. I think it was a chain store but it really felt quite homely, and the huge concertina windows had been thrown open to let in the breeze. Most of the chairs and tables were arranged around this window so we could sit and people-watch comfortably.

5 berry bingsu and an apricot tea that tasted kind of alcoholic.

월미도2 | Wolmido Deux

Quite a while ago now, one of the teachers in my school took myself and Nick out for a trip around Wolmido with his family. He broke me out of Summer Camp deskwarming (classes finish at around midday but I can't leave until normal school time of 4:40pm, gah) by asking 교장 himself if I can be excused early. Then we hopped into the car, greeting his lovely wife and daughter, before speeding off to Nick's school, grabbing him, and continuing on to Wolmido.

I think there was originally some misunderstanding or miscommunication, but it turns out that the reason for the rush was because we were due to get a ferry! Just a little chain ferry across the water to the Airport Island, but as the last one was at 6pm we had to get a bit of a wiggle on.

We were handed a large bag of shrimp crisps, which are great (popular with the Filipinos back home) but a bit too fishy for my liking. But we were told "for the birds". Hm?

Turns out the tradition with this little ferry is to lob these snacks into the air for the seagulls to catch and fight over. A braver man than me, 김 선생님 would hold one between his fingers for the birds to snatch right from his hands. They did it very delicately and with great accuracy, but I value my fingers a little bit too much to risk it ;p