lao-ocean-girl

Part of last weekend was spent in Pusan (??) with co-workers.  On Friday night, I went out with Curtis, Hye-rim (who I’ve worked a summer camp with), and her friend (who I don’t exactly remember the name of).  We went out for drinks at a brewery before hitting the university area.

Me and Hye-rim(Oh yeah… I got my hair cut in Tokyo!  And I’m drinking a beer… I’m a big girl now.)

We had this dish I’ve never eaten before.  Hye-rim told me the name, but I can’t remember it  (Update: It’s called ?? ???? - literally, seafood fried rice soup).  You take a piece of the fried rice and pour this spicy seafood broth over it.  It was delicious.
 

We then went to the Kyungsung and Pukyong University area, where the clubs were.  Pusan’s Club Day was the previous week, but we wanted to check things out anyway.  We arrived around 1am, and it was kind of dead.  Nonetheless, we got some dancing in, had a drink at a Family Mart, and met the obligatory drunk Korean that wanted to befriend foreigners. 

The next day, the four of us ventured to Haeundae Beach.  The people who live in Korea know it’s the busiest beach in the country.  On the day we went, there were about 700,000 people at the beach, but the numbers will swell up to 1 million this week (with the onset of summer vacation). 

Some of you are probably wondering why I would even want to go to such a crowded beach. There’s no good beach real estate, as everyone is packed like sardines. The lifeguards herd the swimmers so they don’t go past a certain boundary. In this case, the water came up to my shoulders (I’m 5′8"). And, there’s more urine in that water than I want to think about.  Still, you’ve got to make do with what you’ve got. There’s more people in Korea than in Canada, and they reside in an area about the size of Illinois. Even with 100 lifegueards, they have to control 1 million people! So, I can understand the boundaries.  As for the pee… hey, you’re not drinking it.  Even with how bad it sounds, it’s still the BEACH! How often are you able to go swimming at the beach in Korea?  Plus, it’s fantastic people watching.  You get to see all the Seoul girls with their 3 inch dangling belly button rings.  The beach culture here has changed a lot in four year.  You actually see a lot of bikinis at the beach now.

Peeping through the inner tube handle.