Korea Day 6 (Sept 22)

AT LAST. No more freaking driving. A day just waking up in a hotel and not necessarily needing to. Of course, we still woke up at a relatively decent time, but the fact that we didn't have to felt great.


Our hotel room.. if you hadn't noticed.. no beds ever!

The first thing we did was hit up a cab to the center of Seoul, a grand city indeed. I knew cities around asia were bigger than their USA counterparts, but the insane amount of people and structures is still staggering. Busan was huge, but it was dwarfed in comparison to the capitol.



How do you get a statue of yourself in the center of town? Why, simple! Just invent the korean alphabet (which is vastly superior to chinese/japanese characters I might add)

We decided to mix things up a little bit in the food department and had some delicious thai food. We all had some pad thai, which was some of the best i've ever had.



Being sated, we began our pilgrimage to all of the big sites of the city. The first, the grand palace Gyeongbok .





Upon entering, we stumbled upon a recreation of the calling of the guard, which was pretty interesting to watch. I would have had a video of the event, but my camera ran out of juice midway.


Front of the Gyeongbok palaaaceeee

This place was pretty epic, lots of very interesting structures. Unfortunately , all temples and castles in korea pretty much use the same color/design scheme… which we later confirmed countless times.

Still pretty cool looking tho.



"NEAT!"


Alright, you've convinced me... I'd live here.


Next, we wanted to check out the "stream" inside of the city. Originally it was a stream, then it was a sewer, then they took out the road onto of it and turned it back into a stream again. Just a cool site inside of a big city. Apparently a lot of festivals and concerts go on in the area. I can understand why.

The beginning of the stream



It's rather long

Amy's big desire while in korea was to check out the art, so away we went to the big art museum of Seoul. Outside there were some very very cool sculputres… but the inside was rather lacking…. pretty much all video art and photographs. Which we all agreed where about the dullest media to witness. There were still a couple cool ones inside anyways.


trippy sculpture in the front.. made you think you were staring at a convex mirror



what the hell is this thing? oh... modern art.. i get it.. =/


Stopped for some korean food along the way for Gimbap (shushi like rolls), Dumplings, and of course Kimchi!

We then went out to check out the Seoul tower. In korea, it seems that every big city needed its tower to be able to have tourists come in and witness the surrounding area. Being the capitol, seoul was the most popular by far (much to our later dismay). We had a pretty cool hike up to the tower, which itself wasn't very high at all, but happened to be on top of a very large hill… we went up to the top of it.. but we had to wait through quite a few lines.


Amy was miserable the entire hike up... turns out she had 7 blisters on her feet.. yeowch


we made it! How exciting!

Apparently lines are fairly commonplace here at big sites, being that there are so many people. In fact, at most fairs the lines for rides are about 20-30 minutes long, something similar to the biggest theme parks in america, but everyone's used to it and just shrugs it off.


View from the top.. Seoul is rather huge btw

We had it with sightseeing, being tired and all that we decided to go back… to hit up the pubs! We enjoyed a few brews and then hit back to the hotel.



Drinkin away... they love putting napkins on top for twistoff bottles (but still put them on for ones that needed to be popped as well...)

Korea day 5 (Sept 21)

We slept in till about the last second possible, and then booked it out. For some reason Mark decided he only needed 3 hours of sleep, so he was a little out of it. We drove to Seraksan. To go on some freaking hiking!


Our lovely bathroom...


view outside of our hotel



Rest stop snacks on the way, delicious dumplings and Korean pancakes
Well… it would have been amazing… but it was raining like crazy the entire day. When I say crazy, I mean we got hit by a Typhoon all day, which I guess is an interesting experience from an indoor vantage point, but driving it was absolute hell.

Instead, we had to cop out and hit up the cable cars.. we would have gotten some rocking views as well, but the fog obscured everything in the area… even still, it was a fairly nice view. I guess you can't have everything go right during traveling. There was also a temple on the mountain, but it was



At least we gotta see a rocking Buddha statue. Unfortunately, the only "XL" poncho available wasn't quite my size or color preference.


Despite the fog, we still got some pretty sweet views.


On our way down
Feeling very wet, cold and dampened, we decided to head out as the rain wasn't letting up at all… so on to Seoul!

Neat bridge along the way that we stopped at.


Chris didn't wanna go to Seoul, so we made a side trip to drop him off at a bus station at another somewhat large city. Unfortunately it was a wasted effort because the buses didn't even go to Masan. Wa wa… this meant we instead had to drive into Seoul to drop Chris off, rather than our original plan to just ride a bus into the city. Man… what a nightmare decision that was… upon reflection we all agreed we should have just let him suck it up and stay in a hotel outside the city for a night.

Dropping Chris off wasn't the big deal, but the rest of the day… well, night, was nasty. We had to find a hotel to stay at, but also one that would allow a spot to park.. well also happened to be low on gas as well, and whenever we tried to get to a station we were blocked by a billion other cars who would not let us in.

Eventually we found gas and a nice little hotel to stay at and booked it for the night and the following one. Not exactly the greatest day ever..

Korea Day 4 (Sept 20)

Argh! I'm already hopelessly behind. I have a feeling a great deal of this won't even see publication still after I'm back in St Cloud. I've had the worst luck getting wireless and I've been absolutely pooped when it's around.

Woo, waking up at 5:45 and watching the sun rise on the beach is incredible. Good times. Of course, now that I'm writing this I sort of wish I stayed asleep a little longer. Why? The town is pretty dead in the morning. Everyone sleeps in here, since everyone works late. Chuseok has already begun over here as well so everyone seems to be pretty merry. Today me and Amy are spending the day by ourselves while Markus teaches back in Masan.

View from the hotel room, writing some blog posts!



They had a sex toy vending machine on the stairs... pretty funny

Right after we woke up we decided to go out and walk the beach, there were many very cool sculptures in the area. Sadly, I already started to regret the whole waking up early decision and started to feel very sleep deprived. A white chocolate mocha (from a starbucks, they're everywhere here) and a double shot later, I started to feel quite a bit better.

Cool head sculptures on the beach..

Each one had a different theme.. I bet you can't guess this guy


Rather than hail a cab, we decided we'd walk to our first destination, the art museum. I mean, it can't be that far right? It's oh so close on the map! We had no idea the magnitude of the size of this city. So we basically walked about the 4th of the way and then headed back to our base at the beach. Then when we got back we realized the art museum was actually closed because of the holiday. Luckily Amy wasn't distressed and too high on the foreign travel to really mind. Instead we decided to go to the giant Korean war memorial. Shortly afterwards we hired a cab.


Another classic Korean site we saw along the way, free outside gyms.

I figure this is a good time to talk about the whole cab/car system here. Back in the states, I considered them a medium of transport for the lethargic, wealthy or drunk folk, but here, they are a lifeline. Pretty much as cheap as can be at about 12000 won for going across town (~10 dollars). Unfortunately, you need a picture or some korean words ahead of time to avoid a very lengthy charades process, but luckily Mark warned us of this before hand. As far as the average driver goes, everyone.. EVERYONE has a GPS. Why? Because the roads are clearly made by drunken Irishmen to quote our old muscle head governor. There are no signs, and intersections are like some spider's web where the spinner was a lab test subject on Meth. Everyone parks every which way, and people literally stop in the middle of the road, turn on their hazard lights, and run over to the nearest bush to take a leak. The driving is also crazy, and makes St Cloud drivers look a little more sane, although probably still more dense.

We arrived at the war memorial and were amazed at the monuments constructed to commemorate such a struggle. When one thinks of the cold war, they generally think of the past, but officially it is still going on every day, the Korean war never ended.


War is hell. I think this picture sums it up pretty nicely.

A picture of the main memorial, the inside part had a small shrine covered with tablets inscribed with the names of hose who died. It was also on a very tiny island in the middle.

Another memorial, with Amy at the center

Afterwards we headed back to the area around the bus terminal, so we could get an easy exit from the city. Being hungry again we decided to hit up the local pizza place, Mr. Pizza. Man, foreign pizza is so much more interesting than the basics america has to offer.




check it out! 4 types! It was good!

Time to hit up the bus station.. and how much did an hour bus ride to Masan cost? <70 cents! Woot. Upon arrival, we still had some time to kill before walking around so we decided to check out the area around Masan. We didn't end up really finding anything interesting, but I got one of my first admirers. While we were talking a young girl just dead stopped in her tracks and pivoted around as we walked by. About 30 yards further I looked back and she was STILL staring at me and she waved, I waved back and I think I made her day. It was pretty funny. As a result of this we decided to have a minor competition as to who would get stared at more… Amy won.

Afterwards we hailed another taxi driver to get back into Mark's area, unfortunately the fellow wasn't too sure as to where our destination was, so we were quite worried for a bit… luckily I started to recognize the area and we were able to find Mark's place of work just in time to frighten his students with my height.

Afterwards we met up with Mark's friend Steven and decided to hit up a vietnamese restaurant, good stuff. We decided we'd drive out tonight to potentially avoid the chusung traffic, so we picked up Chris who was coming and along and headed out on a very very looong drive…. 6-7 hours.

It's fairly nuts when you think about the driving here, because the country is smaller than the size of Minnesota. However, it's so mountainous that something that could take about an hour and 30 minutes could take, well… 7 hours… needless to say by the time we arrived at a hotel (4-5am) we were really tired.

Korea Day 3 (Sept 19)

Don't get me wrong, I like having these jam packed vacations where I'm going around everywhere, but well, a vacation is a vacation. Sometimes you just gotta sleep in a little… today.. Busan!

Briefly before heading out, we watched a short documentary on North Korea. Being so close to such a place when you're in an area like South Korea is absolutely mind blowing. The complete and utter dedication (slavery) that the north korean people follow for their glorious leader is absurd and really one of the saddest things in the modern world today. The contrast between the two is staggering. We had talked about checking out the DMZ, but we didn't really want to dedicate an entire day to crossing the border. I also really HATE the idea at all that North Korean dictatorship would profit off of my petty curiosity.

The four of us set out once again shortly after waking up to the beautiful city of Busan. Upon arrival mark gave us the ropes about where to go, the bus station and all sorts of other goodies. The reason being is that both of us would be spending the night here while Mark and Keziah went back since they had to work the next day. I am pretty stoked.

After our tutorial we went once again to some authentic Korean cuisine… KFC! We had some Tower Burgers, and cold tasteless fries , but it was quick and we were absolutely starving.

look! even the drink is in a bag, haha

Afterwords we decided to go shoppin and check out all of the local stores. I am one for hating knickknacks, but… technological knickknacks? count me in!

USB drive transformer! hell yeah!

Amy picked up some goodies for friends, and I proceeded to selfishly shop for myself and get some neat clothes/stuff.

I picked up a shirt and they hand tailored it for me on the spot, very nice :D.

After some shopping we decided we'd go check out the local bookmarked.. which was closed. However, it was kind of fortuitous because when all the shops shutters are down, it displayed one of the most badass graffiti galleries ever! Once again many, many pictures were taken.


showing on a Jesse Weaver desktop wallpaper near you!


The book street



I don't really have much of a reason to put this one up, other than I think it's pretty great =).

About this time it was getting lunchy/dinnery so we needed to find some kickass cuisine to feast upon. Korean barbecue? Hell yeah! Once again another amazing setup, with a billion sides (which, by the way, koreans LOVE their sides, you get more sides than main dishes: picture). We were able to cook our own meal and then promptly eat it. We ate a bunch… even Dajong got some.








Already it was getting kind of late, so Mark led us over to the beach to help us find a hotel. He got us one he had rented in the past , which has an absolutely gorgeous view. After getting accommodations we said our goobyes, they headed out and we walked the beach for a bit. Tommorrow, Busan day 2! Amy/Jesse only!


Beach outside of the hotel

Korea Day 2 (Sept 18)

Whew, I'm getting behind already! More to follow at some point.. XD
---------heeere we go

Man, I sure can't sleep in when my time zones are totally hosed . Much to Amy and Mark's sorrow, I woke everyone up at about 6:30 in the morning… then we headed out to some breakfast. Shortly afterwords we picked up Mark's girlfriend Keziah and proceeded to go out to Tongyeon to go check out Yokji Island.

After a couple of hours driving down the Korean highways.. we arrived! After checking the times for the ferry, we headed out to get some food, where we stopped to get some quite mediocre pork stew from a nearby shop. One of the interesting things about Korea is many small restaurants exist right next to each other, a lot of them serving the exactly same menu and each just owned by a particular family that lives in the same building.

Breaking back to the Ferry, we boarded the boat for about an hour ride to Yokji island. The views along the way were spectacular:






Upon arrival we didn't have a whole lot of time, as the last ferry left a couple hours later, but we did get the chance to ride some go-carts around the mountain. This was amazing and fun, but sadly my tallness stabbed me in the back again and no matter how I maneuvered my gangly legs I couldn't drive without pressing them against the steering wheel and drastically impeding my ability to avoid cars, so I became the photo guy.

The views while driving on the island



Riding it up


After the drive we headed back to the ferry where Marks dog got loads attention from the locals (par usual). Really though, everyone LOVES marks dog, Dajong. The 4 of us get constant stares from the natives but marks dog really takes the spotlight (some of the first Korean words we learned were dog, and cute).

Quite a ferocious creature.

When we got back we decided we'd go check out this entire street covered with murals. After navigating through a gigantic local fish market, we headed up a hill to where every single wall on the street was just completely covered in artwork, an Amy's paradise! Needless to say our progress was slow as the girls (Keziah loves taking photos as well) took copious amounts of pictures (luckily for you readers, since I'm a complete slacker). We watched a beautiful sunset on the top of the hill and then headed back to the car for our journey back to Masan.




When we arrived we picked up Keziah's roommate Chris, and then headed to one of their local favorite restaurants, . It was pretty neat, just threw a bunch of veggies and meat into a big pot, cooked it in front of us and threw it all on rice and dug in. Yummah.



Bellies full, we decided to waltz around the town until we decided on something to do, which turned into movie rooms. Holy crap. Movie rooms are freaking amazing. Imagine a theatre, but without all the shitty people, slightly cheaper, and your own private room with a projector and some of the comfiest seating around. If movie theaters back home rocked this style, I would be watching movies daily instead of declining every single invitation I get and generally looking upon the movie scene with absolute distain. Not to mention there were a lot of pretty good Korean movies available. They can be pretty silly, but even the most comedic film seems to end brutally, which is pretty interesting. We watched a war comedy where at the end all of the main characters died horribly to machine-gun fire and bombs. "Welcome to Dongmakgol"
Video room seating... other side was projector screen + wall. Very nice!

Post viewing we briefly pondered the option of going out for drinks, but we were all a bit tuckered out. After dropping Keziah off, we went back to Mark's and passed right out, no waking up early tomorrow for me.

Korea Day 1 (Sept 16/17)

Well, here I am again. Traveling. Due to the raving reviews and demands from my ravenous fans (hi Mom & Dad!) I have decided to once again continue to journal my epic exploits across the globe. 2/2 years for leaving the country, so far so good.

Sadly, my journey this time begins with a day of flights which includes little to no legroom, body parts falling asleep, poor movie choices and the company of an occasional fart from a nearby flightee. On the bright , I've got an Amy Brown following me around this time full of good cheer ("JESSE, my side hurts GRRR JESSE MY CHEST HURTS, JESSE MY FOOT IS ASLEEP"). I'm sitting here typing this in the airplane of the Narita airport in Tokyo, waiting to take off our flight to Busan. Right before entering the plane however, I had a horrifying encounter with one of my old foes, a bidet.


thanks, but no thanks...also note the obscene amount of controls.

Upon arrival we went through pointless security (they scanned our bags, but anyone who walked through the detector and went off were just ignored) then searched for a payphone to call up Mark. After some fumbled attempts at communication with the locals, I finally managed to get some change so I could use a payphone.

Mark picked us up at airport without too much difficulty and we headed to his place. His apartment is actually pretty nice, although it's kinda small..

His place is small, but Amy's having a blast!

After stopping at Mark's we headed out to the nightlife of Masan. Across the street we took an elevator up to a small restaurant/bar on the rooftop and had my first taste of Korean beer which wasn't the most amazing thing ever... however, these were: (button picture... i don't have one yet, caption: service buttons! If only bars in America had these.... seriously)

After getting reasonably intoxicated we decided to call it an evening.. it was about 2am in Korea and about 1PM back home ;).