Busan Fireworks Festival Oct 22,23 2011

This was the Busan (south) fireworks festival. I finally managed to go on the same trip as my neighbour Bernard went on. I've been wanting to go on the same trip for a while.

Everyone met up in the evening in Seoul, and I was planing to meet them as well, but I missed the last bus from my area and so I had to make my own way there in the morning. 

I went down to Busan, took about 6 hours I think, and waited for the group next to the hotel, at a very cute bar, with very nice music and very good beer.

We went over to the beach and found a place to sit down, watch the sun set and wait for the fireworks to begin. I think it was a competition between some countries, and this weekend was Korea, and Japan, and USA, and an East European country. 

And the show begins. I don't know which picture was from which country. 

It was a lot of fun. 

Then, after the show, we all went out to eat and clubbing. We went to this one bar where the bartenders were throwing around fiery drinks. I don't remember much.

In the morning, we went to find breakfast at an English breakfast restaurant.

I made some cool new friends. 

Global Gatherings - Oct 8,9 2011

Another awesome start to another awesome weekend. It started with a bus ride, 2 bottles of red wine and a funny shirt.

The bus ride was to Hongcheon, the to bottles we obviously drank, the shirt was a cowl-neck and it belonged to Bernard who was trying to be fashionable. After this night, I don't think he ever wore that shirt or any other type of cowl-neck again.

After we arrived in Hongcheon and met up with Jen, we sat in front of a convenience store, bought some alcohol, ordered some fried chicken for delivery and chilled out there for many many hours.

We had many visitors. Bratty students who just wanted to eat our chicken, and some random Korean men who ended up drinking with us for a bit.

Bernard was trying to ask this guy if he thinks his shirt is sexy.

This guy wanted my number. Just kidding! HAHAHA!

Bernard brought his cougar juice (alcohol flask with a leopard print) and was spiking the guys soju. I'm sure he had a headache the next day.

After we finished the alcohol, and soju, and everyone had left, we decided to go check out the festival that was still going on in the town. Jen had to go home to do something, and never came back, so Bernard, Danny and me went off to the drinking tents.

Bernard is still trying to make his shirt seem cool.

Berns and Danny.

This is how my vision was at this point. I think we were drinking magkoli at this point. It's a fermented rice wine. Very very tasty. Oh, and I see a beer bottle next to me. Yea, so we were drinking beer too.

Somehow we managed to get back to Jen's apartment. Danny took the bed, I just sat down. HAHAH! I must have been really happy. 

Next morning, Bernard is trying to be a Hipster.

These are the balloons that are showing us there's a festival going on at that spot.

There was also some sort of exhibition. Very cute pictures.

We were actually on our way to Seoul. There was a big music festival, and last night (Friday), was just the pre-party.

Berns with his cool aviators in the sloooooow cab to the festival grounds.

Here we met up with some more people. We were all very under-dressed. All the Koreans were sporting very fashionable leathery funky things.

They had cool things for sale.

Tents with alcohol and food.

They even had Umpa-Lumpas. 

Glow-sticks and music! YEA!

Bernini is a brand. And they were there. And it was Bernard's birthday, so the guy gave him a free hoodie and some towels.

Around 3 or 4 am we ended up in Hongdae, which is a clubbing district. I don't know why we went there, but the ride was pretty hilarious. Bernard was screaming out of the window: "Mo-han-ya!!", which means: "What are you doing?" He must have learned that phrase that day and was trying to remember it. All the Koreans were finding it hilarious.

After we were all tired, we stopped at a KFC to wait till 5:30am for the subways to start back up so we can go to our respective bus stations and get our bus back to our own towns.

Another wicked weekend!!

Incredible Weekend!!!

What an amazing week/end!!!

After a long weekend reconnecting with a friend down south, I had two cool brothers come couchsurf at my place. They stayed for a couple of days. It was great to talk to travellers again. A day before they left, another couchsurfer came. It was awsome trying to fit all three in my tiny apartment.  Well, we all bonded and talked and exchanged ideas and great music.

Then, on Friday, Bernard, my neighbour, got me to go with him to another town and party with some if his friends I met a few weeks ago. Well, the weekend started with two and a half bottles of wine on the bus to Hongcheon. Then another few bottles of wine at Family Mart, maybe some beer and soju too. Crazy evening with Jen, Danny and Bernard. We somehow managed to get home at around 1:30am and passed out until late afternoon the next day.

We each had some Korean Morning Care hangover cure from the same Family Mart and eventually at about 2pm we left fir Seoul.

We were going to the Global Gatherings music festival. After a very long hour in the cab, we finally got there. We could hear the music and see loads of people all dressed up heading the same way. I was so excited. It's been such a long time since I've been to an electronic music festival.

And then the music started!!!!!

WHOAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!

It was amazing. We danced from 6pm until about 3am. We walked around to different stages and looking for people. It was so nice to be outside and dance to amasing music together with new friends.

We left around 4am and waited at a KFC full of sleeping people for the subway to open at 5:30am so we could go to the bus terminal and each of us go to their respective towns.

Naturally, I slept all day today (Sunday).

Tomorrow I have another couchsurfer coming for was couple pf days.

And then next weekend we're having a Thanksgiving party with hiking the next day. I hope next weekend will be just as amazing as this weekend has been!!!

Gyeongju Long Weekend - Oct 1,2,3 2011

For the long weekend, I went on a cycling trip of Gyeongju. It's in the southern part of the country. I was there before and visited a friend of mine. I'll be posting those pictures soon.

We left Friday night, and were on the bus until very very early in the morning, where we stopped at a traditional village and got some sleep for a few hours.

In the morning we walked around and took pictures. I posted some Instagram photos earlier. They were from this trip.

The place where we stayed at had some animals. It was so cute.

There were also lots of beautiful Cherry blossom trees.

And Magnolia trees. 

This is where the first little hike started.

There were beautiful trees everywhere.

We walked into the forest and found this. Very bizarre trees.

And tombs. Apparently of kings. But who knows really.

And more tombs, but these are of common folk. They aren't as big as the other ones.

And we came to a little temple. There was a monk chanting inside. This is what we heard. It was amazing!

Another little hike, and we found a rose tree. Strange, I know.

This is Malia, next to a Buddha statue on the mountain.

And then lunch. Only thing available that wasn't all carbs was the Kimchi Stew. It was alright. 

This is the tour guide, Warren. He's very unorganized and seems flustered all the time. I try not to go with his tour company most of the time.

The results of my initial diet. My belt is getting tighter!! YAY!

Me and the cute pink bike I got to use for the day. Not the most comfortable thing, but it got me around.

This is Aimee. We've been on several trips together before.

After biking for some time, we stopped to go into this park.

It was the best weekend to see the Cherry Blossoms. They were in full bloom, and everywhere.

This looked like a postcard.

There was a small bamboo forest, so we took some pictures around there. Wow, my thighs are so much smaller now :). 

There was this very eerie place that sold little shrines and statues of everything. Creepy!

We stopped at a field of yellow flowers, and subsequently lost the rest of our bike gang.

It was so worth it though!

Traffic was insane!! There were so many cars everywhere stuck in traffic trying to get around. They should have walked or taken a bicycle like we did.

More Cherry Blossoms in the distance. 

And kites.

And lots of people. WOW!

Night lights to light up the pretty trees.

In the morning we went to the beach really early to catch the sunrise. Unfortunately it was just too cloudy.

But we did meet some people doing some praying and chanting and other shamanic old-school practices.

Somewhere there, under those rocks, was some king buried. 

These are two huge stone pagodas. They were in a very random place. Nothing was around.

This guy had enough. He was planning to attack and kill Warren. I wouldn't have stopped him.

And now off to see another thing. 

A forest of Cherry Blossoms. WHOA!!!

This was me before my new haircut. 

The road had pretty flowers. 

Temple, rush rush rush!

I wanted to buy one, but didn't know which one, and didn't know how to hang it in my apt, so I just took pictures of all of them and that was enough.

Another temple. Rush rush rush!!

This building was built into the mountain, so these huge rocks were actually holding up the roof and the back is actually the mountain. It looks very impressive.

The last thing we saw as we were rushing to get back to the bus was a very friendly and curious chipmunk.

It was a good weekend as usual. Met some cool people and took some incredible pictures.