Well, the blog has been screaming to be resolved. This post and the next one were written a good few months after the events they feature,but as the Polish proverb says, better late than never.
After Okinawa trip came the ultimate time for the Korean visit. In a sense I wished it happened 2 years before, when I actually learned how to speak that language (unfortunately, I took the language class for some rather embarrassing reasons). Nonetheless, blessed with an angel of a travel companion, Elizabeth, the two of us went off to be your silly, fabulous, American tourists in Seoul and Busan :).
My first impression of Busan – it smelled heavily of fish, everywhere. Sorry Elizabeth, I know you loved it, but I’m afraid it’s because you and your positive personality tend to love almost everything.Or because you haven't been to Okinawa ;). To me, that was a rather small tactical mishap – I should not have gone anywhere close to beaches or seaside right after Okinawa, at least not until the paradise effect from that trip wore off. Brushing apart the fishy first impression, Busan did indeed provide some scenic highlights – a really beautiful Yonggungsa temple by the seaside,
night view to the bridge and street music or some nicely packed, definitely post-military service hunks, playing at the Haeundae beach, shirtless, under the sunset. He was with a lovely silly girl, who refused to go close to waves because she didn’t want to get her feet wet (what a brilliant idea...). I decided, for the sake of my own gratification, that she was definitely only his “sister”, much to Elizabeth’s amusement.
Seoul on the other hand was more a memory of delicious Korean BBQ restaurants off the street and nice markets of randomness than of sights. Of course we did hit the main attractions, Royal Palaces and gardens included. Lots of visible Chinese influence in the “traditional” sector. Even one of our tour guides lectured us in Chinese (as we didn’t want to wait another hour and a half for an English speaking tour guide).
We enjoyed lots of delicious street snacks under the scorching sun and had the most delightful time counting and betting on the number of couples in matching T-shirts we could spot. Neither of us won – our estimates were way too low (30+ was the end result for 2 days of counting), and we couldn’t decide whether a whole family with matching clothes should count as well. The question remains: what’s up with this shirt matching obsession?
We also afforded a visit to an amusement and waterpark, which was probably one of the best choices we made. I tried the wave surfing attraction (the only one without an onerous queue) whereas Elizabeth enjoyed being splashed by a gigantic amount of water that could easily rip off any scanty Victoria Secret bikinis.
My lovely chicken, Elizabeth, adamant at refusing to ride any scary rollercoasters, was eventually coaxed (read “cheated”) into one by my small white lies like “there are no loops in this one, I swear!” At least she had enough fun not to kill me for that lie. Seoul’s amusement park called “Everland” (could anyone come up with a more kitsch name? Barely any step from M. Jackson’s “Neverland”) had this funny proclivity for and ridiculous imagination of European cities. I was therefore highly amused to suddenly see bright-colored land of Holland, wooden villages of Swiss Alps, or excessively pink and red rose gardens of Victorian England, all in the middle of boiling Korea, witnessed by me as I ran through all of them with my mind set on conquering some more adrenaline-positive attractions (read: more loops and speed).
But as a girl raised on Disney fairy tales, I was, am and will always be a complete sucker for colorful parades and beautiful multi-media shows, toppled with a breathtaking fireworks display, which nicely concluded our little trip at Everland. Indeed, memories made forever and ever.
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