Busan!

As promised, I have an update (with photos!) of what we've been up to in 2009. Today's update is about Busan, Korea's second-largest city. It's a port city in the southern part of the city and to any readers familar with Georgia who might be reading this, it's like Batumi in Georgia, in terms of importance, serving as a cultural counterweight to Tbilisi, and also the feel of the city. The major difference is that Busan is a real large city, about the size of Los Angeles, so the level of bustle is obviously different. Anyway, we went down to Busan just after New Year's with our friend Will, and had a great time. Even though January can be a bit chilly here in Korea, Busan is the warmest part of Korea, so it wasn't much below the 30s at any point and no snow in sight!

We arrived on Friday evening, found our hotel, and spent a quiet night because we had a full day of sightseeing planned for Saturday. On Saturday, we set out early and began at Beomeosa Temple. It was founded in 678, although it has all been rebuilt more recently than that. It is a large temple complex, and we enjoyed just walking around the complex and exploring at our own pace. As you enter the complex, there are four statues in the entrance hall which are to ward off evil spirits. They are each very detailed and each statue holds different things.


The temple buildings look relatively similar to temple buildings all over Korea, although there was some designs that are later than the Joseon Dynasty designs which are most common. Also, there was a cool set of statues representing "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil" that we particularly enjoyed. For more photos, I hope to upload an album to Facebook in the next few weeks. Below is a temple building, representing a very typical design scheme but highlighting Beomeosa's location near Busan, but still quite outside (and seemingly quite a distance away):


Next, we found our way to the United Nations Memorial Cemetery, filled with graves from soliders who fought in the Korean War. In the picture below, you can see how it's in the middle of the city. The small brownish bushes are planted by each grave (and there are no flowers or anything else next to the graves, different than American cemeteries), but this section represents only a tiny portion of the total amount. Twenty-odd countries send troops to Korea, and there are memorial statues for each countries, regardless of the number sent. I had not realized until now what a huge percentage of the losses were American, and how many Americans died in Korea. As we walked quietly throgh the cemetary, an elderly Korean gentleman came up to us and asked us where we were from. When we said we were American, he bowed and thanked us. It was a reminder that even though the Korean War is largely forgotten war for Americans, it certainly isn't here. At the end of the cemetery, there was a long wall (similar to the Vietnam War Memorial in DC) with the list of everyone who died in the Korean War, and it was quite sobering to have the stark numbers become names from particular states and countries.


After the cemetery, we stopped at the Lotte Department Store (the largest department store in Korea) to explore and eat lunch at the food court. As we walked into the food court, we saw a replica of the Trevi fountain in Rome, just hanging out at the entrance to the department store and next to a collection of shoes racks. It was quite incongruous, to say the least, to see this hanging out there:

After a late lunch, we walked around Lotte Department Store, which is MASSIVE. Floors and floors of items were available--it was just ridiculous! We walked over the wine and cheese section, hoping to pick up a good Riesling and lots of good cheese, but there wasn't any Riesling to be found, and all of the cheese was quite expensive.

Brenden wasn't feeling very well, so we headed back to our hotel for some down time. After resting a bit, we headed out again, this time to one of the trendy, nightlife areas of Busan. We walked along the crowded streets, looking for the way up to Busan Tower. We walked up the short (but steep) walkway up the tower, then took the elevator up to the top. Busan Tower is 120 meters tall (that's almost 400 feet), and has a quite spectuacular view from the top.


Above is a picture of the tower. As we walked down from the tower, we saw lots of small shops, and whole courtyard just filled with hanging lanterns, next to a small Buddha statue. It was a lovely area, and we were enchanted with the evening.


After eating dinner, we went to bed early again. Sunday morning, we made our way down beachfront Busan. We went to a small bakery for breakfast, then walked over to Haeundae Beach, the most famous beach in Korea. Although it was mid-morning, it (strangely) looked as though it was just after sunrise. The beach was beautiful, but it was pretty windy and cold, so we didn't stay long. This concluded a wonderful weekend away!