Catching up . . .

Okay time needs to slow down! I can’t believe that it has been so long since I’ve posted! Well, let’s try to catch up!

I’ll work backwards.

I am currently on riding the speed train to Seoul for my training that I was suppose to have when I first got here, but there have always been schedule conflicts. It should be interesting but I will be working all weekend, since the training is Saturday and Sunday.  There is no such thing as missing work for training, so you are expected to fit into your “free time” on weekends. This comes from the fact that kids go to school 6 days a week and for 12 hours between the various types of schools: Korean school, math school, English school, science school, etc. It is crazy and the poor kids are so burned out because they have no time to just be kids!

Enough about that. Everyone would rather read about my trip to Beijing for Chinese New Year! Yeah, that’s right I was in China for Chinese New Year! Let me tell you that it was the best time to go, at least I thought so!

Shortly after I returned from my brief trip back to the States (another story for another post, promise) I found out that most of my friends were going to Beijing for our big holiday break (Lunar New Year or as they call it here Solar and Chinese New Year in China.) We had 3 days off for a five day weekend. Luckily, I was able to find someone to book with me to keep the costs down by sharing rooms and so we had an even number of people in our group.

As some of my friends know, when it comes to leisure travel, I do not like organizing anything! Luckily I have great friends and people in my life to help with that! This trip was no exception. Thanks to one of our friends, Mitchell, he organized everything. But it would not have been possible if it weren’t for Lauren and Andrew telling us all about the tour in the first place!

Anyway, the travel agency handled everything from getting our visas, airfare, hotel, bus, tour guide, etc. It was awesome. All I had to do was email my reservation request and transfer my deposit (also another story for another blog, but I will say I wish it was that easy in the States). Then I had to send my passport to the travel agency to get my visa. Yes, you have to get a visa to visit China and for Americans it is a little pricey,  $200. Most other foreigners from other countries only paid $50.  But it was worth it!

The tour was departing from Busan airport, which is south about 3 hours by bus from Daejeon. I was excited because our flight didn’t leave till Thursday so a group of us decided to go down a day before and explore Busan a little. The only bummer is that because everyone is off those three days, travel can be a nightmare. All transportation gets booked way in advance so finding seats on trains, planes or buses can be near impossible if you wait. Our group had to take the bus, which we were anticipating to take between 5 – 7 hours because we heard that all the roads are basically at a standstill. We got lucky and it only took under 4 hours. There was a little of scare when Emily, who had my ticket woke up late that morning and just made it on time. But all was good once we were on the bus. We played most of my games on my i-phone: Jeopardy, trivial pursuit, price is right, battleship, family feud, etc. It was great. Once we got to Busan we took the subway to the beach to find a hotel for the night. We got lucky again and found a really cheap place (less than $10 per person) only a few blocks from the beach! (Mind you that it was cheap because we had to sleep on the floor, but I did sleep great that night surprisingly).

As soon as we walked around Hundae, I felt like I was back in San Diego, with the exception of the weather being just a little cooler (like 20-30 degrees) and Koreans walking around. The area was awesome and made me wish I had taken a job down there, especially since it is the second largest city in S. Korea and has tons more foreigners than Daejeon! We even found a Mexican food restaurant a block from our hotel! We first went to the beach, then we went straight for Mexican food! We stayed there for 3 hours playing trivial pursuit and eating! The only bummer was the new waitress forgetting to give us two beers, then being charged for them and arguing with the owner about it. 

We then decided to go check out Busan tower. It was then I found out that my camera decided to crap out on me! The brand-new thing has a faulty screen! Thanks to everyone allowing me to photo hog their cameras. 

Once we got to Busan Tower, I was going to have a really hard time going up it. Damn fear of heights, which will get me again later on the trip. But I toughened up and got in the elevator but once I got out at the top, I had to stay up against wall, I could only get half-way to the window. After we came down we took some pics of the light-up heart, pad locks, and scenery. Then we stumbled upon a photo screen and all hell broke loose! I think we spent at least an hour taking pics of the 5 of us and messing with the settings, but it was so much fun!

After that we headed back to our hotel. But poor Michelle hadn’t eaten so we scoured the area to find a place to eat.  At first we were going to grab a pizza and chill on the beach but we couldn’t find one. We did, however, find an Indian restaurant that stayed open just for us and we indulged in delicious Indian dishes!

Even though our bellies were quite full we weren’t quite ready to head back to our hotel. So we ventured out to the beach again. It was great and reminded me of the many times I would go to the beach at night back home. We danced around the tide and did silly jumps in the sand for photos. The best part was having a Korean woman charge for Emily and I screaming in Korean and the two of us trying desperately to avoid her only to find out that Mitchell and Michelle sent her to us! She was selling fireworks, so we had to buy some! It was so much fun shooting off fireworks on the beach!

It was back to the hotel shortly after this.

More to come . . .