This weekend I travelled to Busan with some friends. We wanted to get out of Seoul before class gets difficult so we cancelled our weekend promises and went. We stayed with a Korean family who are related to my friend (the pic on the left is of my friend, the Korean son, and me in blue). I’ll tell you about my trip with pictures.

20060227 Busan collection
This is a set of random pictures from the weekend. It includes pictures of and from the apartment we stayed in, the local area, a market, Busan station and some random close-ups.

20060227 Busan Temple
So the first day, after a typically huge Korean breakfast, we headed out to a temple a little up on a mountain. It was really nice to see the traditional design again and wander around where the monks live. It was funny seeing some of the old style buildings with satellite dishes and the like; a true clash of times. It was a particularly impressive set of temples helped by the wonderful scenery.

20060227 Busan mountain temple
Soon after we headed further up the mountains to where some monks lived. Again there were homes built in the style of the neighbouring temples. It’s quite a sight. Also this set includes pictures of the scenery on the way up the mountain. We saw all sorts of animals we hadn’t ever seen before. The young girl is the daughter of the family we stayed with.

20060227 Busan beach
After the temples, we went to the beach. Unfortunately the weather was gloomy and kind of wrecked the beach’s glory. However, I was happy because I really wanted to see the sea. In Wales I can nip down to the coast whenever but from Seoul to the coast is much more of a trek. When the rain came we sat in a coffee shop with a sea view.

20060227 Busan fish
The following day we headed to some of the fish markets and witnessed some seriously fresh fish. It was a little uncomfortable watching the fish suffer and awaiting their fate as a meal or waste. It was an incredible site though. It’s the first time I’ve been to a fish market. We decided to eat in the area since we were there. My friends wanted to eat raw fish but I couldn’t face that so I ate some fried fish. It was very tasty.

20060227 Busan heights
After wandering around downtown and a consumer market we headed up a large hill onto a mountain with wonderful views of the city and the bay. There were many pigeons flying around which reminded me of home a lot. We checked out an art gallery too but I couldn’t take pictures there. After the trek back down the hill we headed to the station to catch the train that would take 5.5hours. A tiring but fun weekend.