Grad trip - Day 6

The jellyfish is back! This post is about my Day 6 out of the 12 days grad trip in South Korea! ^^

It is a long post, but if you are interested to read about my experience, please do so. :)

Day 7: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-7.html

Day 5: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-5.html

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Day 6: From Jeju to Busan

So after the short few days at Jeju, one of the things which we intended but did not do is to walk around the Northern coast of Jeju properly. Since we are leaving in the morning and SY isn’t that keen to wake up early and go for a walk (to catch some extra sleep), I decided to wake up early and go for a walk myself instead. Oh wait, I always wake up early. =P With a jacket, pocket wifi, breakfast and a cap, it is time to take a stroll. The morning air is indeed fresh. Not many people passes by this area, and so the street looks kind of empty. The border of the coast has a low wall around it, with a running track and a large number of fractal rocks guarding the coastline. I took some photos of the place while breathing in the fresh air, and walked over a small staircase which brought me closer to the waters. An elderly man was fishing nearby, and there isn’t anyone else. Sitting on one of the rock steps, I opened up my fruit sandwich and orange juice from bought GS25 a night earlier. A nice cold sweet sandwich to start up the day, with a cold juice, in the cold weather beside the cold sea. The sound of the waves is simply beautiful and rhythmic. It is not every day you get to dine directly beside the waves. So I just camped there for about 20 minutes, thinking about the life in SG, and it felt very long since I departed from Changi Airport… How are my parents? How is my girlfriend? Is everything ok? A bit of reflection about my uni life, some other emo stuff… A really nice getaway in my opinion. =)

Near 7am, I went back to the accommodation facility to see SY still sleeping. I slowly packed my stuff for the cab ride at 8am. The night before, Soojung asked if we needed a cab before checking out, and we gladly accepted the helping gesture. She is so nice, someone should give her a prize for this! True enough, nearing to 7.50am, the cab had arrived at our place and so we quickly rushed out. The trip to Jeju International Airport cost us less than 5k wons, which suggested the absence of a booking charge. Probably the cab is not really booked a night before, but just a current job thrown to nearby drivers at that point of time. Nevertheless, the absence of a booking charge is great for us, and we arrived at the departure point of the airport comfortably. =) Jeju International Airport is really small unlike Changi Airport. The public area is divided into floors as usual to accommodate the different functions of the airport, but each level can be traversed completely in less than 5 minutes each. So flights are divided into two categories, namely international flights and domestic flights. Since our flight is within Korea, it is considered domestic. The departure schedule did not show our flight information as we were way too early, as such SY suggested a rest at the waiting area until when we nearing the correct time. So while he played with his phone, I went for a tour around the airport. =D So the departure area consists of a lot of airline booths (quite standard) providing information and check-in services, security check-ins facilities are also present in the departure area directly instead of being right before the flight as in the case of Changi Airport. The airport seems to be having a busy morning as there is a large crowd of people checking in and crowding in front of a baggage check in counter. Ah! At the edge of the departure hall lies a small number of shops selling confectioneries and other products, but surprisingly has a super large amount of orange-related stuff. There must be like 3 such shops in that dense area. Other than the shopkeepers, no one was there. =P The arrival area is slightly dimmer, quieter but the area holds a super large range of brochures consisting of the nice attractions of Jeju. -_- Ok, the brochures we obtained at the Wando Ferry Terminal we rather decent, but this variety of information is definitely much higher and attractive. Ah oh well. Would we have gone to other places with this overwhelming amount of info? I guess that will remain as an open question.

The food area at the 4^th level is rather decent. It offers a nice range of Korean Cuisine, more expensive restaurants, Chinese Food, Lotteria and a western style café. Since I had the fruit sandwich earlier, all these food were skipped. There’s also a playground for the kids. Actually I feel it is sufficient to have these facilities as an airport, there is no need to go to extremely great bounds to make the airport super beautiful and all. Probably the beauty of an airport would attract travellers to make an airport transfer and thus generating more income. Hmm. Near 9.10am, I walked back to the departure area to meet up with SY, and apparently he is being bugged by a guy who was trying to share the beauty of his religion. -_- We quickly proceeded to the baggage check-in area, and handed over our stuff. Not being sure if we would need to declare the detergent as an item, I took out my Korean dictionary and flipped over to the detergent word, getting a smile and a “it’s okay” from the guy staff. =P The domestic security check-in staff requested a 2^nd X-ray for my bag for unknown reasons. Did I stuff too much stuff in my bag? O_O The inner area is quite crowded, and the scene just looks very familiar to a busy bus interchange where people are waiting for their transport to arrive at the correct terminals. SY sat in front of gate 4, while I took another short walk in the duty-free area. Other than one big department store which sells branded goods, the rest of the shops are more for eateries and gifts, which once again consists of a significant number of orange products. XD That time when I planned the timetable, I found planning Busan’s activities to be a bit difficult as I couldn’t find a nice feasible solution of activities to cover up the days, but after going through the timetable once again with SY, actually the plan doesn’t look so bad after all. =P Everyday from day 6 afternoon to day 9 morning looks like a nice plan. A potentially great part of the grad trip awaits! XD Oh, there is a mini board that shows the departure information in the following few hours in both English and Korean. Spent some time in pronouncing the Korean words so as to kill time. =P

1005hrs, our plane arrived and we were set to board the plane, and the plane boarding process is quite special! So in normal big airports, we boarded the plane by these connected tunnels between the airport and the plane entrance, everything is air-conditioned and you are not exposed to the outer surroundings. For our boarding, we were asked to board a bus with the other flight passengers all the way till the body of the plane, and then just like the movies, we climbed up the small staircase from the ground level to the door of the plane. That felt pretty awesome. =P Our EASTAR plane is a small cosy plane, unlike the Asiana plane which is suited for long distance travels. Since it is a short distance travel, there is no entertainment provided except for some magazines, and the seats are slightly more cramped. The air stewardess gave a live demo for the safety briefing, and then we were left to rest on our own. The female staff are really pretty, while a guy (which I mistaken as a captain until SY corrected me) is really handsome! =D Regardless of the airlines, the CA crew must look good ya? I spent the majority of the time writing down the happenings of the previous day, while drinking a cup of water offered by the CA in the middle of the flight. It was still pretty comfortable, and I like their service. The way they pronounce EASTAR is very cute. =P 

At 11.15, we reached Gimhae International Airport. Welcome to Busan, the 3^rd part of the grad trip! ^^ Gimhae airport is very similar to Jeju airport, small in structure and cosy enough. After collecting our luggage, we proceeded out of the airport to find the Busan subway. There’s a very long queue in the arrival area, but thankfully it didn’t affect us. Unlike the Incheon airport where the subway station is partially underground, the subway station of the Busan airport is overground. Not much difference in the subway structure as compared to the Seoul subway, except that the Busan subway lines look much neater (even neater than SG), less interchanges and the way they announce the train arrival / doors closing is different! =) The Busan subway also has a few cute comics that illustrate the safety procedures in case of emergencies, some stuff about giving up your seat, a note that Busan’s dialogue can be quite different from the rest of Korea due to dialect issues. Unlike Seoul, transferring between lines in Busan is definitely much shorter and convenient. =D The subway gates is a turnstile, and I had trouble to push my luggage underneath it. It turns out what people do is that they just slide the luggage underneath the turnstile first to some short distance, and then go in the gate. Ah oh well, I wasted a thousand won for that mistake. =P After reaching Seomyeon station (with a wrong exit), I followed SY’s in walking to the accommodation facility near the Ediya Coffee café. =P Our facility is on the 11^th floor, an apartment in the middle of the busy area. The place is beautiful and brighter too. SY settled for a mini sofa and table near the windows, while I took the kitchen tall table for my own personal area (SY calls it an office). =D The downside is that the bed is directly next to the wall, but since I usually wake up earlier, I took the outer edge of the bed. =P After a short rest at the accommodation facility, it is time for a 1pm lunch!

The cheaper prices in Jeju have made choosing an affordable restaurant in Busan’s urban area a more difficult task, as prices are naturally elevated for such an area. Not much difference in searching for affordable food in Orchard. We settled for a soup shop at the corner of a street after walking for some time. The shop looks a bit old-fashioned, with dull coloured walls and lots of ginseng jars stacked nicely against the walls, and also a sit-on-the-floor eatery concept. The corner of the restaurant hold some kids’ items and posters, is that supposed to be a kid’s corner or something? Some patrons were having their lunch too, making the restaurant a bit busy. What is surprising is that all the process of cooking, hosting and money collection are done by 1 single ahjuma! Wow! She told us to wait for awhile as she processed other orders’ first. No hurry though. The menu is on the wall, and I aimed for the ginseng chicken soup as recommended by my father. SY seemed to be a bit lost for choices though as soup constitutes most of the items and he is not really a big fan of soup. When the ahjuma is ready to prepare for our order, she passed by our table and asked “ginseng chicken soup”? I nodded my head, she acknowledged and walked back to the kitchen area without asking SY for his choice. O_O SY said he wasn’t very interested in the chicken soup, but he is too lazy to ask for a choice in order, so that’s that and both of us had the same meal. XD The side dishes served were very different from the ones we have seen in the previous 5 days. This shop serves spicy kimchi and cucumbers, spices, sour pickles (the ones seen in hamburgers), spicy octopus and beef joints. I have always thought that Korea side dishes are vegetables, but it seems like this is a counter-example to that belief. Perhaps different cities of Korea will have different side dishes? Hmm.

The ginseng chicken soup came thereafter. After realising that only the soup is served, we asked for two servings of rice from the ahjuma. She asked if we wanted one or two bowls of rice and gave us a puzzled look when we asked for two. We had a super chicken-duck conversation about the existence of rice in the lunch, with her saying lots of random Korean sentences and pointing at my soup, while I just gave a confused look of asking if she has rice as I feel it is nice to have something to go along with the soup. As the convo got more and more out of hand, she took my cutleries and started turning over my entire chicken and there it is! Apparently there is rice in the soup! I was like “OH BAB”. She just smiled and proceeded to show me how to eat it by peeling a small bit of chicken, and scoping up a bit of rice and green beans, and proceeded to hand over the spoon to me after sprinkling a trace of sea salt to the contents of the spoon. Wow, the way of eating chicken soup and rice is really extremely special! In SG, all our soups and rice were separated, or otherwise the dish will be named as porridge instead. The soup serving is really big, and has a strong ginseng taste (unlike some of the diluted soups in SG). There’s really a lot of chicken and it’s quite tender. The amount of rice and green beans is quite little though, I didn’t expect beans to be in the soup, but come to think of it, I have heard that green beans have the property of cooling down the body, and so perhaps it is added to neutralize the heaty effect that would come from the ginseng soup? That’s a very smart idea! =D The side dishes are ok, I am not used to cold beef joints, but they serve as a temperature neutralizer as opposed to the hot soup. =P The whole meal cost about $15 for each person, a nice start meal to the Busan exploration! XD Before heading back to the accommodation facility for another short rest, we bought some strawberries and bananas for fruits, and some snacks from GS25. Since we are out of Jeju, finding oranges remains as a problem, the closest ones we can find is orange in colour, but we have no idea what idea is that. The shopkeeper said that the shop has no oranges too, how sad. =/ Ah oh well, the other items would suffice too!

A quick rest for SY to unpack and his stuff and nua at the comfortable sofa. Near 3.30pm, we set off to the Yongdusan park (near Nampo station) for a walk. Yongdusan means dragon head mountain and sounds remarkably similar to long tou shan in Chinese. We got a bit lost along the way, but realised the existence of a shopping area nearby. Definitely more crowded than the areas in Jeju even in the late afternoon, some wrong turns here and there while passing by the Busan history museum, and we finally reached the park after 20 minutes. XD Busan is warmer than Seoul and Jeju probably due to the days being closer to June and our area is sheltered by various tall buildings. This park is an exception and makes the air cooler (even though it is not as great as Jeju). We climbed a flight of stairs up the park, and enjoyed the greenery. Some small parts of the park are dedicated to the past Korean warriors and their sacrifice, but other than that there is nothing really interesting on the way up. A main attraction on this park is the Busan Tower which brings people all the way up to some heights for a view of the Busan city. Unfortunately (to SY’s disappointment) that attraction is closed for renovation works. T.T The top plateau of the park shows some of the statues of past kings and has traditional Korean items such as big bells and shelters. Not really fascinating, but still there is quite a number of Koreans and tourists coming up here to enjoy the view of the city and taking a break from the building-dense areas. There is also a small temple for people to pay their offerings, but we didn’t see anybody there. Since it is a very short walk at the park and we still have time, our trip extends to the Busan history museum. The museum showcases about the development of Busan in the modern times (>1900), the processes which the city and people have went through, and some of the famous events that had occurred such as film festivals. The museum was divided into multiple levels, with each level representing a different part of the history. Levels 2 and 3 were rather intense as they mentioned about the times during the war, how the people were mistreated by the Japanese, the measures, mitigations and conclusions by various actions. Just like other museums, this one also had some mini videos to explain the history and presented some mini skits to model the life of people in the past. There was a part where Koreans were requesting the tax to be decreased from 80% to 60%, and a riot broke out when the negotiations failed. The people who died from this were labelled heroes, and it is kind of heartbreaking to know such stuff. Overall, it is a nice insight and makes us treasure the peace we have today.

At 5.30pm, we left the museum to go for an evening walk near Nampo station. A lot of small shops selling small items, fashion accessories and random household stuff in the multiple streets of Nampo. That gave me the feeling that the street is used for flea market purposes, but in reality it definitely isn’t. XD Due to space constraints, most people will walk outdoors as the corridors are jam packed with stuff. Along the way, you can hear Korean music played by various shops, some being more hip and playing English ones. There was a shop playing Owl City’s Hot Air Balloon song, which is definitely not played in any of the SG shops before! That was simply amazing. =P The song would never get on SG’s radios as it isn’t clubby / monotone enough. Nampo also features an underground shopping center, which is actually an art street for paintings and statues enthusiasts. The whole area is extremely quiet and ulu, until we decided to go back up upon discovering the next exit. I think a person goes there only if he has a purpose, otherwise not many people goes there for fun. There is a book café in that area, where people could borrow books to read and stay there for a period of time by paying a small fee. If SG had such a thing, I may go there during my free time during my schooling period. =) As the evening approaches, the crowd starts getting bigger in the shopping areas. I didn’t know that the crowded area is known as BIFF square until SY pointed out to me. That area is used for the annual Busan International Film Festival for selective days and our visit did not fall in the correct period. That’s alright. The Artbox in Busan is really big! There many stationeries, plushies, bags, etc. That area is like >=10 times the size of the small Artbox shops in SG. Recently there was one event hosted near Gardens By The Bay? I am not even sure if the total size of that merchandise area can match with the Artbox store in BIFF. =P SY accompanied me to visit a bookshop, and it just feels like the Kinokuniya bookshop in Ngee Ann City, except that now the books are in Korean! Not sure why I am so fascinated by the Korean words on the C++ and algorithms textbooks. =P Imagine if someone gave me a com sci related book in Korean, will I learn the Korean first or just guess what the book is trying to explain in Korean? Seems like both have to be done, killing two birds with a stone. Interesting. =P

Instead of having a proper Korean cuisine meal, SY asked if I wanted to have a go at Lotteria for dinner. Why not? In we go to the Korean fast food outlet, and well it just sells all the normal stuff such as burgers, fries, ice-cream, etc. Not that much of Korean specialities unless you count the different sauces as the differentiating factor. I would have expected something like kimchi burger or something, but I guess that didn’t happen. XD That being said, Lotteria offers a larger variety of side snacks such as nuggets, cheese sticks, random bites in addition to the normal fries. SY had a beef burger for his dinner, while I ordered a hash brown burger set with the change from fries to cheese sticks, and an orange juice (bottle) for drinks. The burger consists of two round hash brown patties with a slightly thicker height than the normal mac hash browns. Topped with vegetables and some mayo, it is absolutely delicious and suitable for non-strict vegetarians. =D The first patty is crispy and hot! The second patty surprised me extremely pleasantly as it was actually stuffed fully with mozzarella cheese! OMG that is so nice! I will definitely miss this burger, SG should have a Lotteria outlet with this burger! Aiya, the way I am writing this made me hungry. =P After dinner at about 7pm, we went to the Lotte mall for a walk. I wanted to see how it is like inside, while SY aims to find some additional snacks for himself. Lotte mall is a very big department store which has the Takashimaya feel of random food shops in the basement and a supermarket inside. The items there look rather high class and are definitely confirmed by the shown prices. =P There’s a pizza hut there though, and it has a salad bar for the patrons! If SG had this, I would be spamming the lettuce and tomatoes to go along with a cheese pizza. XD The supermarket is big, with the size similar to a decent Giant shop. SY bought some small sweets and chocolate, while I bought several packets of flavour-fushion seaweed as promoted by an ahjuma. A bit expensive, but the packaging (panda) and all looks like its ok for a small treat.

We then travelled back to the accommodation facility, and SY suggested that I could get a hot dog as a night snack while be buys some Soju for drinking. I ordered a cheddar cheese hot dog from the hot dog shop near the facility. A few young staff were inside cooking and preparing the ingredients. Hot dog seems to be a popular snack as I have seen them in various food street shops. There is even a photo of celebrities enjoying a hot dog snack to promote the dish. After the frying is done, the girl staff placed the hot dog on the cooling metal plate, and asked me something in Korean. As I couldn’t understand her completely, I just nodded and say yes. It turns out she added some white powder to my hot dog which suspiciously looked like salt / sugar / combined. The next step would be to add my desired sauces on the hot dog. Being stunned again, I simply took the cheese sauce bottle and dressed up the hot dog miserably. I think she sensed that I was a foreigner and was shy in adding the sauces, that was when she extended her hospitality by offering me to add the tomato sauce too (I could understand tomato because the Korean for tomato is exactly the same). How nice! The other staff asked where we were from, which SY replied Singapore and invited some smiles from them. It was a pleasant purchase experience from them! Koreans in the service sector can be so friendly to foreigners. ^^ We went back to have a long nice rest while SY offered me to watch a probability and statistics program on the EBS channel on TV. What a nice way to end the day! Ok la, I didn’t watch the stats show that much as SY could be watching something nicer. On that note, day 6 ended beautifully! =D

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If you would like to read more about my experiences, you may click on the links below. :)

Day 7: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-7.html

Day 5: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-5.html