Busan: Sunday

Can't believe it's taken me a week to finally finish my blogs about Busan! I've kept myself busy and out of the technological world this weekend, and it was a very welcome break! I watched all three Lord of the Rings (Extended Editions) on Saturday (which took, including breaks, about 13 hours!) It was a mad idea but I loved it. I am lucky that I have a friend and neighbor here that is as much of a LOTR freak as I am (and can actually quote the movies BETTER than I can), so we watched together. But, anyway, back to Busan...

On Sunday, it was again a slow morning. We had to be checked out of the hostel by 11am, but most of the girls weren't even awake by 10am, so I asked if we could have a later check out time. For 2,000W each, we could have another hour. I woke everyone up (since again the light streaming in my window directly onto my face woke me up way too early) and managed to get everyone ready and packed by noon.

We left our suitcases at the hostel while we found some food. The weather on Sunday was pretty gross. It rained all night Saturday, so it was just kind of muggy and overcast on Sunday. We got some food at Burgers and Pasta (take a wild guess at what was on their menu).

Stupidly, I only packed shorts and beach attire for the weekend, and I was freezing my butt off on Sunday with the temperature dropping quite a bit. I actually searched around a bit for a blanket or sweatshirt or something, but to no avail.

We had several hours before our train was scheduled to depart, so we went to a place that I had actually found on a website (High Five: Busan Awesome) that was a cafe for decorating your own cake/cupcakes. There was five of us so we got the set package for 6 cupcakes and we got to choose our own frosting flavor/color, and there was loads of decoration extras.

We all spent some time decorating our cupcakces, then of course had to take tons of photos with them. (Unfortunately none of the group ones are in my posession! Will post when I obtain them...)

I was the guinea pig for the man teaching us how to use the pastry bag for frosting (-->)

I worked hard for a bit covering my yellow cupcake (the green one you see is Green Tea flavored). My cupcake had white, chocolate, and strawberry frosting, and featured a chocolate "C" on top!

 Once we finished up, we headed towards Busan Station. There is a famous fish market there that Tanya, Sean and Meghan wanted to check out. I was pretty wiped out, but I just went along for the ride. We had our suitcases with us and I knew it was going to be frustrating lugging those through a fish market, so when we arrived and I saw a bench conveniently located outside I had a seat!

Apparently the market was not very exciting (no surprise... it was a) inside, b) not busy c) dirty looking), because everyone else finished and came back out within about 15 minutes. Not sure why the place is famous, since it seemed pretty pathetic.

Anyway, after that we headed to Busan Station and got some food before getting on the train home. On the way back I was not seated with anyone from my group, and therefore had an array of various seat partners, one of which stank of fish and kimchi (barf!). It was a pretty rough train ride back; I only managed to nap for about an hour, and otherwise read a lot and listened to music while people watching for the other 4 hours.

Lesson learned: next time I want to go cross country, I need to take the KTX. More money, but way faster and nicer!

When we got to Seoul Station, we took a jumbo cab (aka a van) home and I finally crawled into my beloved bed around 1:30am. I have never been happier to see my apartment, sleep in my bed with my pillow, and shower in my own bathroom. It may be small and kind of crappy sometimes, but I am appreciative of "home".

Next, I MUST catch up on a festival I went to three weekends ago: the Lantern Festival! Until then...