Downtime

This weekend was used productively to get some rest, save money and to sleep as much as possible. It also helped me catch up on some of movies I didn’t get a chance to watch before. On Saturday I went to lunch at Arun Thai for some delicious Thai food with Steven, Thao and her friend Ester. About 3 hours later Steven and I joined Andrew and Erin for some Indian food at the Bombay restaurant. I ate so much food that day that when I met up with Jay and her visiting cousin for a late dinner that I wasn’t hungry. Instead I went home and started my movie marathon. I watched a weekend total of seven movies! Yes, you read that correctly. SEVEN! The first movie I saw was Hugo. Then I watched Like Crazy, Paranormal Activity 3, and Puss in Boots before I slowly fell asleep and got 10 hours of sleep. After talking to my friends in Canada on FB chat for few hours I watched The Fouth Kind and a Tamil movie called Unnale Unnale. Later in the evening after dinner I watched Midnight in Paris. All of these movies had a different genre and oddly enough the best movie out of this bunch had to be Puss in Boots because it was funnier than the other six and the most surprising storyline. The other movies I could tell right away what was going to happen. The Tamil movie lasted over 3 and half hours. It just kept dragging on but I told myself that I would watch it for a friend.

The week I am going to try and watch more movies because I have another eight or nine that I have on my laptop that I still need to watch. By the way, five more weekends left until I am back in Canada!

Active U.N.

On Saturday I met up with my friend who lives in Yangsan, which is basically the town that is the closest to Busan. I met up with Lara and had lunch together at a Pakistani restaurant. This was my first time trying Pakistani food in Korea. When I was in Teacher’s College last year I didn’t get a chance to visit any Pakistani restaurants and whenever I came to Toronto for a visit, I usually just had home cooked Tamil meals. Anyways, Lara and I played badminton for a bit, which was also my first in Korea, and hung out at the Lifelong Learning Festival. We didn’t know about the festival until we got to the badminton courts, and saw lots of tents set up and kids running around. The slogan for Yangsan is “Active Yangsan” and they had so many green spaces, bike paths, badminton courts, and wider sidewalks for people to actually use it. It seems like more and more people from Busan might move up there in the next few years. After hanging out in Yangsan until 6pm, I headed back to Gwangalli beach in Busan to relax with Yana, Warren, Jay, and Victoria. Around 10:30pm we all departed because Yana, Victoria and I had to go watch Avengers in 4D! Basically, this is my third time watching the movie. First in 3D on April 25th, then in 2D few days later and on Saturday I watched it in 4D! Well worth the price of admission.

On Sunday, I finally headed to the U.N. Cemetery with Andrew, Erin and Steven. The Cemetery is located in Busan but I never had a chance to go until this Sunday! The place was very nice. The grass was cut so neatly, very peaceful and quiet (minus the security scooter dude who was super noisy). I took a lot of pictures so I decided to put them as collages for you to check them out and easier on me because I don’t have to upload gazillion pictures to this blog post. I have less than 2 months left in Korea and I am starting to miss home more and more now. I am not looking forward to being unemployed but I am looking forward to seeing everyone again in Toronto. The time has certainly gone by fast but on some days it seems like it’s not moving at all. Being 25 years old has already taught me that time is essential for everything we do and plan so I want to spend the remaining time in Korea productive as possible. I want to check out more places, hang out with friends that I have made in Busan ,and cherish all the memories.

My Quarter Century Birthday

I am now officially a quarter century old! I just turned 25 on Sunday May 6th! Unfortunately, it’s also the first time in my life that I am celebrating my birthday without my family. I wanted to make sure that I kept the entire weekend busy as possible with fun activities that are not centered on drinking alcohol, which seems to be the only activity people of my age want to do. Instead I got creative with my plans and made it a weekend of eating, joking around, laughing and more eating with the friends I made in South Korea. These friends truly made my birthday memorable and an experience I will take with me forever!

On Saturday, my two friends Victoria and Yana made a mango birthday cake with dried mango chunks inside the cake! I never knew that was even possible but the cake was delicious! I had seconds and even thirds. This was right after I enjoyed some yellow chicken Thai curry for lunch. I had over 15 friends come down to Busan from all over South Korea (Seoul - Noelia, Hopcheon - Ogechi , and Uiryeong- Pelisa). They really enjoyed the Thai food and the cake as well. After lunch and cake, we wanted to go on a Pirate Ship cruise but that got cancelled because the original plan was at 4pm for the cruise but on Thursday I was informed that the times have been changed from 4pm to either 11am or 2pm. That means it would have affected the lunch plan and to those who are coming from faraway places. Instead I thought we could go watch Avengers in 4D or on Imax but the show times were not good for the majority. So we decided to go bowling! Only 7 of us showed up but we managed to have tons of fun and Nav was the best bowler out of the group. Although I got a turkey (3 straight strikes) on the 10th and final frame but I still managed to only finish second. Right after bowling we took a taxi to Daedaepo beach to see the Musical Fountain show. We waited for an hour for the show to start but when it did it was really good! Apparently, it’s the biggest musical fountain in the world. You can check out the pictures for yourself and let me know what you think of it.
All of this fun got me really tired and I woke up at 10am for all of this and by now it was 9pm. I decided to head home and I met up with the two guests who were sleeping over at my place at Seomyeon. We took a taxi back to my place and I cooked them dinner as a treat for coming all the way down to Busan. Both Pelisa and Ogechi were wonderful guests and they even left a birthday gift when I fell asleep. By the time we ate, talked, and slept it was 2:30am.

The next day I woke up at 7am. Yes, 7am on my own birthday but this was not the first time I did this. I remember working at the banquet hall on my 22nd birthday and I remember doing a walk-a-thon at 8am on my 18th birthday too so it was fine with me. This time around I woke up at 7am in order to be at BEXCO around 8:30am to take part in the bridge walk. Once a year, the Diamond Bridge (Gwangalli Bridge) is open to the public to walk on the bridge and to go from BEXCO to Namcheon (which is 5 subway stops away). Pelisa, Ogechi and I were the last three foreigners to finish walking the bridge because we took our sweet time taking tons of pictures. We did cartwheels, we did jumps, we did Romanesque poses, and other random crazy poses. We had tons of fun and fortunately we finished 3rd last overall because two Korean kids from different family stalled their parents because they didn’t want to walk anymore or they just wanted to sit down on the bridge. At least it helped us finish ahead of them. After all that walking, we along Gwangalli beach until we arrived at the Barbie’s Day lunch meat buffet at 1:20pm. Slowly everyone, all 16 of us, showed up by 2pm and by now I was grilling chicken and duck while my friends were grilling baby octopus, beef, and pork to chow down on. It’s a meat buffet after all so it was unlimited amount for 17,500 won a person. There was rice, sweet and chili chicken, and other small dishes, along with desserts and fruits to go along with the all of the meat we could grill. After everyone was stuffed, we slowly wandered to Mango Six for more desserts. I had a mango coconut smoothie and it was the best. At Mango Six, Victoria and Yana once again surprised me with a huge birthday card and more gifts! I was really surprised! Finally, everyone slowly drifted back to home and other plans because the next day was Monday (work day)! However, Victoria, Yana, Nav and I went to a Burger and Pasta place to relax, chat, play a game called 20 Questions, and eat some more. This time around I only had potato wedges because I was still full from lunch. Around 9:30pm we out to beach to play with the sparklers and that’s when I noticed the moon so big and bright. Then I remember someone telling me that May 6th is when the moon will be the closest to the Earth or something like that. I guess May 6th is truly a special day because not only is it my birthday but it’s also my eldest niece’s birthday, my favourite hockey goalie’s birthday (Martin Brodeur), and somewhere in Philippines it’s the Mango Festival! Anyways, I got home around 10:15pm and called my family and friends back home. I finally fell asleep by 1:30am and I had to wake up at 7am again because it was back to work! The weekend flew by so fast but it was a lot of fun! I will remember this weekend for the rest of my life and the wonderful people who made it special as possible. All the people who showed up for the Thai food (Ananda, Erin, Jay, Jeongeun, John, Karen, Nav, Noelia, Ogechi, Pelisa, Steven, Victoria, Warren and Yana), I would like to thank them so much! All the people who showed up for the Barbie’s Day Meat Restaurant (Elizabeth, Ezra, Jason, Mincer, Nav, Niki, Ogechi, Pelisa, Soko, Steven, Vivek, and Yana), I would like to thank them so much as well. Finally, I am exhausted and dire need of rest so I am going to take it easy for the remainder of the week until Friday night and the weekend craziness shall begin all over again with brand new adventures and with a boat load of fun!

Gwangalli Beach-E!

This weekend was practically spent at Gwangalli beach (Koreans pronounce it beach-e with a huge emphasis on the E). On Saturday I took part in the Gwangalli Eobong Festival (Fish Festival). There were many arts and crafts tents for children to participate in but all I did was design my own button pin. I also took some photos of the parade so check them out. Afterwards we headed out to Nampo-Dong to eat Thai food for dinner and watch Avengers (second time for me). It was a fun day but exhausting with all that walking and travelling because Nampo-Dong and Gwangalli are not close together. They are at least 25 minutes taxi ride away.

On Sunday, I was back at Gwangalli beach to enjoy a picnic with different set of friends. Tons of fun and Steven cooked lunch for all of us! He even made a chicken dish specially for me and my other friend who doesn't eat beef either. He also made desserts! Chocolate cookies! Afterwards Andrew, Erin and I just hung out at his place until 9pm.

The weekend was tiring but luckily the students have exams on Monday to Wednesday so I don't have to teach anything. I am looking forward to next weekend because it's going to be a special weekend for me.