Tourist Attractions

The weekend started slowly when I woke up at 9am because the previous night I went to sleep at 7pm! The 14 hours of sleep was refreshing and much needed. It was worth it too considering the weekend was busy with plenty of tourist activities with my friend Nav. I will organize the events in chronological order so that everyone can keep up with the blog posting.

Tourist Information Booth:
Nav and I felt at home at this place. We basically got information to the city and to the entire country in English. I was able to snag couple of brochures with popular attractions in Busan and other touristy activities to do throughout the city in the next 10 months or so.
Jagalchi Fish Market:
This particular fish market is the largest in South Korea and home to thousands of fish and sea food. Nav and I walked around for an hour before we bumped into foreigners who have been here in Busan for only 3 weeks! Younger than us by 2 whole weeks! It’s always nice to meet people who are curious, adventurous, and have a tourist-minded approach to the city like us.




Nampo-Dong Shopping:
We only spent maybe an hour or so of browsing around shops but we certainly have to go again because we only covered approximately 10% of the entire area. I did manage to get 5 pairs of socks! Ankle socks are popular here and very efficient for the type of weather the city gets. Each pair of socks were 1000 wons (less than a CDN dollar because the CDN currency is quite strong these days). My favourite is obviously the one in the centre – Angry Birds! Although the red bird is quite useless in the game compared to the others however since it is red I must own it. Nampo-Dong will certainly be a place I will shop for small Christmas gifts (especially those who showed up to my 5th Annual Sports Event).


Busan Tower:
The view was marvellous but we honestly need to invest in a proper camera. The images did not show the true beauty of the sceneries and obviously my iPhone does not have flash so it was quite difficult to take proper pictures during the night. I still haven’t owned a camera in my life so I will probably try and buy one before the start of the summer vacation for the public school English teachers (which is in another two weeks). Nav and I will certainly come back to this tower during the day and when we own a good camera.



Kyungsung University (KSU):
Around 9:30pm, we decided to head towards KSU to roam around this region of the city, and to meet up with our friend Chris. I bought a baseball cap for the first time since I was in elementary school (maybe grade 3) when I owned a Minnesota Twins cap. Anyways, Chris, Nav and I witnessed couple of bands perform but we were too occupied with our darts challenge, and meeting new people from the city and the country. Afterwards we grabbed some shawarmas for a late night dinner! I got two chicken shawarmas for 7,000 wons! It was filling, delicious, and it reminded me of the real spicy food that I enjoyed so much when I was an undergraduate student at York University.

I got home pretty late and I went to sleep right away because I knew there were more tourist attractions to enjoy tomorrow as well. Sunday started early for me because I woke up at 10:45am and got ready so that I can go visit Nav’s area which is an hour away by bus and subway combined. I finally arrived at Nav’s place around 1pm and we had brunch at a restaurant that specialized in chicken dishes.

Mt. Jangsan:
Around 3pm, Nav and I decided to take the challenge of hiking up this mountain that is estimated to be around 637 metres above the sea level. The weather was fabulous, and the timing of the hike was great too. Unfortunately there was a minor accident which caused us to turn back around near the waterfall area of the mountain. The waterfall was not big or pretty and you can be the judge of it when you look at the photos. San in Korean means “mountain” so Busan is actually a reference to Bu Mountain. Busan is after all filled with many mountains and huge hills so it is understandable why the city is called what it is.





Sung Jung Beach:
Due to the accident, Nav and I headed earlier to the beach than we originally anticipated. However, the timing was great because the sun was not beating down on the sand and the breeze from the ocean was cooling after a long day of walking. We were able to take pictures of the sceneries from various elevations and of random things we saw. We will come back and try the speed boat experience for 20,000 wons and the Banana Boat ride for 15,000 wons. We were a bit late because the beaches here close at 6:30pm and we arrived around 7pm. Oh well, it gives us another reason to come back to this quiet beach.





For dinner, we went to a German Korean restaurant in Nav’s neighbourhood. The fondue I had was amazing and well worth the price! First time having fondue in a long time and second time overall. Anyways, that was my busy weekend and if you are curious about the minor accident that occurred on Mt. Jangsan and want to know more about it, please read the next blog post.

English Summer Camp – Week 1

For the first week of the English Summer Camp, I wanted to make sure the students were engaged, willing to participate in various activities and most importantly felt comfortable in the working environment. I believe I have established that with activities such as: self-portrait drawings, painting of butterfly using out foot and hand prints, hiking, creating a decorative frame using flowers, and playing soccer. There were other fun activities that I was able to organize for the six students who decided to join the summer camp. Yes, the number of students is quite low because the students were not aware of my arrival prior to the students making other commitments and vacation plans. I don’t blame them considering I only showed up to Busan June 25th and by then the students were already looking forward to spending time at the beach or going to other countries with their families.
On Wednesday, the weather was very bad in Busan and in all of South Korea as well. None of the students showed up for the summer camp but good they didn’t because it was raining all day. The skies were dark and the rain just kept pouring and pouring. Fortunately I was able to leave school early to go to the bank and pay my bills at KEB.

Pictures will be posted later when I get them from Ye Jin.
On Thursday, Victoria, Nav and I wanted to go see a musical called, “JUMP!” but it was not playing anymore in Busan. The website we used to find this information must have been outdated because we spoke to the facility managers and they said that the musical has been moved to Seoul since March. I am not really into musicals but this particular one has martial arts and comedy. Oh well, we still managed to have an amazing evening and the photos are the evidence to our fun get together.

Nav and I competing to see who gets the most points in throwing a baseball.
Speed and accuracy were important. I destroyed Nav 2950pts to 1250pts.
Highest speed for me was 111km/h (which is equivalent to 68.97mph).
Not bad considering what I was wearing.
Oh, the prize (small dolphin keychain) for getting 2950pts, I gave to Victoria as a gift.

More pictures will be posted when I get them from Victoria.
On a side note, I am happy to be able to talk to my parents, siblings and my friends through MagicTalk (which is similar to MagicJack but this is more of a software for my laptop). The connection isn’t the best but I don’t call often anyways. I use it maybe once a week so it’s worth it for me personally. I use the laptop speaker and mic and that could explain why some of the people had difficulty hearing me or having the conversations disconnect periodically. I will invest in a proper speaker and mic system when I go shopping randomly and hopefully its affordable too.

Millionaire

I can’t believe I am a millionaire at the young age of 24! Okay, it’s not really a million dollars but this is the closest to having a million of something – million wons! I finally got my first month’s pay check! I got my flight reimbursement, my settlement allowance and the extra pay for 3 classes as well. However, I am still waiting for the interview job payment which was few weeks ago. Hopefully I get that soon because it has been awhile and they said we would get paid within few days. For those who do not know how the Korean currency looks like, please refer to the photos below.
The 50,000 wons currency is not used often.
For the longest time the 10,000 wons currency was the highest currency in Korea!
Here is a quick tip for future English teachers coming to Korea to teach and would like to transfer money. 1,000,000 wons after “Transfer fees＋cable charges” equals $876.62 CDN but after checking my Canadian banking statement, it shows $861.62. I am going to guess that $15 was taken from the Canadian bank for processing the transfer as well. From now on I will wait until I accumulate more than 1 million before transferring the money because I found out from a friend here in Korea that if I transfer 1 million or 5 million, I am still going to be charged the same amount of fee for transfers. I might as well learn how to transfer money now so I can do it by myself in the future. Now I can pay off my credit card debt that was accumulated during the 8 months of joblessness in Windsor while attending teacher’s college.

Please do remember that the Canadian dollar is very strong at the moment. 1000 wons do not equal $1, in fact it’s more like 1123.64 wons equals a Canadian dollar (at the moment). It is always fluctuating. By the way, transferring money is very simple and quite efficient through KEB (Korean Exchange Bank). I strongly recommend you using this bank because they have services in English and their online banking is very easy to use. Now, I need to figure out how to pay bills because the bills are all written in Korean with some English here and there. I will somehow figure that before August 1st when the bills are due but until then I will just start saving up.

My next blog post will be about what I have being during the summer camp for week 1, which I will post on Friday. I was requested to put this particular blog post up because of their curiosity of the Korean currency compared to the Canadian one.

Spontaneous Weekend

I didn’t plan anything special for this weekend but I still ended up having two amazing days. On Saturday, I woke up early to go meet Cheryl was going to help me get access to a cellphone. Unfortunately it was not possible since it was a Saturday and the stores don’t allow this type of service on weekends. Instead we are planning on meeting up on Monday after summer camp work. Cheryl and I decided to walk around the Gwangalli beach area and grabbed breakfast at a pancake house.

Afterwards we just hung around the beach and relaxed for hours. For lunch I had Japanese food and tried Udon noodles for the first time in my life. I really enjoyed it and the meal was affordable too (7,000 wons - $7). That night we headed to the PNU area and watched a band perform for a special event. The restaurant that they were performing at was closing down soon, so the performers wanted to do something special for the owner. After that, bunch of us headed to a karaoke place. I sang one song and then ended up feeling tired and sleepy.
On Sunday I didn’t wake up until 3pm. I was still feeling tired from the previous day’s ventures. However I met up with Nav and Jeongeun and watched Harry Potter – Deathly Hallows Part 2 in 3D! It was sad knowing that the franchise that has been successful for 10 years is coming to an end. The movie itself was okay in my opinion considering they left out so many details. However, that was expected and I was not surprised about that either. Overall the movie was great and worth watching it on theatres. After the movie, we grabbed pizza and just hung out until 9pm. Then we departed back to our homes so that we can get to sleep on time unlike Saturday night.

Settlement Status

I couldn't think of clever title so don't laugh. On Wednesday, I decided to explore more places and this time I was courageous enough to tackle the Seomyeon maze by myself for 2 hours. I headed to Seomyeon after working on the summer camp, and after going to the KEB bank where I was told to get my Canadian account number verified before I get an "Easy-One" bank account. Easy-One bank account allows me to transfer money from the Korean bank to my Canadian CIBC bank electronically and effectively with no set-backs. Anyways, at Seomyeon I was walking around and looking at various shops. I went to a called, "Alpha Stationery Store" and it was an awesome place! Most of the prices were affordable or cheap. I stocked up on stickers because the middle school students love the sticker system I use in the classroom. I also got an adapter for Nav (600 wons - 60 cents) and found some postcards too! Finally I come across these elusive items! I also got a Mickey Mouse sticky note which means I don't have to use the school's pink sticky notes. I explored for another 10 minutes and that's when I saw a barber shop! I finally see men getting their haircuts so I knew it was okay for me to go in. I quickly went in and asked how much and they said it was 10,000 wons ($10). I said okay and they showed me a book with different hair styles. I chose the hair style that I recognized (don't worry people, it was not the typical Korean style). After I chose the style, I was asked to come get my hair washed. I was thinking to myself, "Will this be extra? I hope not and if it is, I hope it's not too much because I never had my hair washed before in a barber shop". After the wash, I got my hair cut while making small talk about our names, what country I am from, what my profession was, and of course about K-Pop. The barber cut my hair very nicely and then told me to get my hair washed again. I was now convinced that I was going to get charged extra. I was just thinking it won't be too expensive though. After getting my hair washed, the barber told me to come back to the seat so that he can apply wax and do my hair properly. He certainly did it nicely and I was ready to pay and that's when the barber goes, "10,000 wons". I was thinking to myself, "What? Only 10,000 wons? With this kind of service, the patience, the two washes and the fact that I was a foreigner in a new country, who certainly looked like a tourist, and was not going to get ripped off?" I said, "sure" and "kamsamnida" and handed the 10,000 wons. I was so happy that I got their business card and asked for the barber to write his name on the back of the card as well for future reference. I walked out thinking to myself, "$10 for all that and in Toronto I would have to pay $14.99 plus tax and tip, which would come to $18. If I asked for wash, not one but two, it'll probably be at $25 or even more!" Later, I found out from my Korean teacher that haircuts in Korea are indeed really cheap and it's always with the wash.

After the haircut, I felt much better knowing that I saved a lot of money and that I finally got my first haircut in Busan. Therefore, I decided to treat myself to a western style of lunch. I decided to go to TGI Fridays which I have seen many times in the States but never had their food. Yeah, it's quite expensive since it's an American franchise but all I ordered was the appetizer and a smoothie. After eating lunch, I walked a bit more and bumped into a shoe store and I saw some amazing prices for brand names that back in Toronto would have cost me $150 plus easily. I also walked by a hotel that seemed busy with lots of people so I decided to take a picture of that too. I'm such a tourist, I know. After the busy day in the Seomyeon maze, I went home and slept at 9pm. I woke up at 6am with bright sun hitting my eyes and got ready for another day of exploring the city that I started to slowly settle into.

On Thursday, I did more summer camp preparations and around 12pm Ye Jin and I decided to go shopping for the items we needed for the first week of camp. We got snacks for the students, plain white t-shirts, drinks, food, and other random items from Homeplus. Hopefully the second week of camp does not require as many items as the first week. Probably not because second week of camp is all sports related, thanks to me. Anyways, after shopping I decided to treat Ye Jin at an Indian restaurant called "Namaste" because Ye Jin has treated me twice to lunch and she has helped me so much! I don't think any Canadian would have tolerated a foreigner from Korea for one whole month. She has been patient, resourceful, and translated so many things for me. I wanted Ye Jin to be full and at the same time taste something non-Korean, so I brought her to an Indian restaurant! The food was yummy but the prices were not Indian range, more like American range but it didn't matter because I really wanted her to try Indian food and I wanted to try it at least once while I am here in Korea. After lunch I headed to KEB bank to finally get my Easy-One account set up because my eldest sister was able to get my bank account and other details sent to me before I went shopping and for the lunch. By the way, I got my Alien Registration Card earlier in the day as well. Overall today was a productive, enjoyable and a relaxing day. I hope the remainder of the week is like that too.

Ruban the Explorer

On Monday, I went to school thinking I can just focus on the summer camp and try to figure out the exact number of students who signed up. Instead I was told by Ye Jin that one of the teacher's mother passed away. I left at 12:30pm to go home and change into something more appropriate. I am glad that brought 15 dress shirts and couple of black dress pants with me! I showed up to the funeral area around 2:30pm but I was lost for a good 50 minutes, so I didn't get to the actual place until 3:20pm. I learned that in Korean funerals, it is a custom to give money to the family who is grieving and that's exactly what I did. I gave 30,000 wons ($30). I am not sure if that's little or not. Later I found out that it was good enough considering that I don't even know the person who passed away. I personally avoid places such as hospitals (home of the needles), funeral places (depressing and I have no idea how to be instantly sad), and libraries (too many books and too quiet) but I still went because I felt that I should go. Sam was kind enough to drop me at home so I was able to save time.

I used the extra time to do laundry, clean up a bit and head over to Gwangalli beach area to meet up with Dylan Kim (a Korean friend I met) who was going to help me get a cellphone. I asked him about a Korean SIM card for my Canadian 3G iPhone but he said its not possible to do. He asked few of his connections as well and they said the same thing. I guess I will use my iPhone as an iPod and a camera instead. Later on Facebook I found out that his wife Cheryl has an extra phone and that she would help me with that matter on Saturday. Hopefully it's possible. I didn't want to have my trip to Gwangalli area be pointless so I got some chicken wings! Horray for finding a place that specializes in chicken. 90% of the restaurants specialize in pork or beef. Two meat I am allergic to. It's a rarity for me to find anything chicken related. However, I do like seafood but I am just a little picky about it because I refuse to eat octopus, squid, eel or any other fish that is not named salmon or tuna. Besides salmon and tuna, I do like shrimp, lobster, and crab. Here's a picture of the box I got my meal in. The actual food is not going to be placed here because it'll be on my Facebook album as usual.
I went home and ate the delicious wings while watching sports (Korean channel). I saw the highlights of the USA vs Japan - Women's FIFA World Cup finals. I was happy with the results naturally. Especially after my team lost (Brazil). I went to sleep shortly after that.

On Monday I went to school once more hoping to get my summer camp materials organized. This time I was successful but I also found out that only 7 students signed up and only 3 of them have paid so far. I have to re-do my 3 weeks of summer camp schedule because I created the schedule thinking I would have at least 20 students. I have less than half of that. I guess many of the students already had summer plans scheduled well before I showed up to the country because the summer camp sign up was before June 25th. It's probably a good thing that it's only 7 students because less classroom management and more focus on the actual activities.

I have never seen so many badminton birdies in one place before.
There were two bins with so many birdies for the students to use.
Around 1pm I was allowed to leave and I went exploring around PNU (Busan National University). Pusan was the city's old name and now it's called Busan. Everyone just calls it PNU for short. PNU area was quite interesting to say the least. Lots of people but at the same time no one was really shopping or going into the stores. I guess the shops are on the way to the campus. There were way too many cellphone booths. I took a picture of a place called, "MLB" which had baseball related clothing, naturally. Overpriced in my opinion considering it did not look authentic. All I did at PNU area was eat at Paris Baguette and get a screen protector for my iPhone. I needed it so badly because I had the same protector for the past 3 years.
After an hour and a half of roaming around I decided to head to Nampo-Dong area, which has been noted as a foreigners place to visit. The place was busy with many shoppers, so many booths of random junk but I didn't find anything to be cheap. I did however go into a leather shop and asked how much a leather jacket was. He told me 180,000 wons ($180) but I told him that the most I would ever pay was $60. The man immediately said he would sell it for $80. I knew it was fake right away but I just wanted to see how low he would actually sell it for. I said no to the $80. He asked me how much would I really buy it for. So I said $30. He said, no and told me how it was already reduced. However, he still reduced it even more to $70. I told him kamsamnida and said that I would come back another time (Nav don't laugh at me). The man gave me his card and told me to come back anytime. I was like "kamsamnida, kamsamnida" and walked out disappointed that the leather jacket was super fake and the store was a ghost town to begin with. If it was $20 I might have actually bought it! Well, I walked around for another hour or so just looking at random items. I saw ankle socks with angry birds on them and it was only $1 for a pair. I was thinking about it but I didn't like the design of it. Anyways, I went back to Seomyeon station, took the bus and went back home. It started to rain as soon as I got on the bus. I guess the weather is unpredictable just like in Toronto. Hopefully it's good weather tomorrow as well because I might explore other regions of the city by myself tomorrow too. I haven't decided where yet but I do need a hair cut as well!

Dynamic Busan

This weekend was busy but fantastic! It started quite early on Saturday. I woke up at 7am so that I can make it to the school by 9am. Yes, it is a Saturday but there was an assembly for the students. It was the end of the semester and the start of the summer holidays. It lasted about an hour and a half so it wasn't that long. However, the principal informed So Hyea (senior English teacher) to let me know that I have to say a speech in front of the entire school! I was very nervous because I didn't know what to say! I pretty much scribbled something along the lines of, "Good morning everyone. Congratulations for finishing your semester. Have a wonderful summer holiday. Be safe, have fun and remember to keep working hard. Hard work will help you achieve your goals and dreams. Congratulations once again! Kamsamnida. Yeah, it was kind of cheesy and short but I honestly didn't know what to write in two minutes before the start of the assembly.
Right after the assembly, the school staff went out for lunch to a fancy restaurant. They asked me to come as well but I had other plans that I already committed to. From 1:30pm to 4:30pm I was interviewing elementary school students in English to determine where they stand in terms of their knowledge of the English language. It was an official work but we got paid separately. It's not too difficult of a job but it was nice to interact with the little kids than the middle school students.

The best interview I had went like this:
Me: "Do you like your teacher?"
Kid: "No!"
Me: "Why do you say that?"
Kid: "She's ugly!"
It was priceless! The kids were so adorable, and knew the language more than some of the adults that I encountered during the weekend adventures. The job allowed Nav and I to meet more foreigners in the city and to expand our connections, just in case we need any assistance. It's always good to meet new people and new friends, right? Anyways, Nav and I went out for late lunch near the Haeundae beach with a friend we met earlier in the day. The beach was filled with thousands of people! Proof, just look at the picture below.
Right after that, Nav and I went to the Busan Aquarium! It was 18,000 wons each ($18) but it was well worth it. We won't be going there every weekend. I am only going to post some pictures here. The rest will be posted on my Facebook album titled, "Busan Aquarium" because we took over 100 photos from my iPhone and if I posted everything here it'll become cluttered with pictures only.




After the Aquarium, Nav and I needed to kill some time before our 9:35pm movie. So we played some games. First it was baseball throwing game. Nav won 2-0 surprisingly. I was shocked to lose in a sport related actively but I redeemed myself nicely by defeating Nav 2-1 (3-4, 5-4, and 7-2) in air hockey.

Finally, we went to watch Transformers 3 in 4D! It was an awesome experience! Well worth the admission price of 18,000 wons ($18). I wasn't able to take any of the pictures of the theatre or the seats because my iPhone died on me 20 minutes before the movie. The seats were comfortable and they moved too. Also, depending on the scenes there were gushes of wind or water being sprayed. It was almost like a roller coaster ride.

The next day we woke up pretty late because we were so tired from the previous day's adventure. For lunch we went to "Hello Kimchi" which was actually a Mexican restaurant. After that we walked around for bit looking at random stores and we headed into a PC Bang (Internet Cafe) where we found out that Laura and her friends will be at the Gwangalli Beach. Nav and I decided to join them as well. It was my first time at a Busan beach and I liked it a lot.
There are supposed to be another 3 more famous beaches near by so that shall be my mission for the remainder of the summer. We hung out for a bit, then had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant and finally we headed home around 9pm. Overall, it was a great weekend and I can't wait to go to the beach again!