Busan Travel Diary - Part I

Trish and I slept through the five-hours train ride from Seoul to Busan, It was past four in the morning when we arrived at Busan terminal where we found Mr. Daniel Kim and Ms. Maj waiting for us.

Allow me to give you a little back story to this couple, we met Maj during our audit in this large ship building company at Subic, managed by Koreans. She was basically the ideal contact person any auditor could wish for. It is also in that company where she met Daniel Kim, their love story begun when she started giving English lessons to Mr. Kim, which eventually lead to them falling for each other and the next thing we knew is that they got married and got blessed with the uber cute Korean baby named Kim-Ha-Yun.
It was a beautiful twist of fate for Ms. Maj, makes me genuinely happy for she really deserves this. I am sure blessed we remained friends with her, because if not for her, Trish and I wouldn't have  the privilege to be a Godmother to baby Ha Yun, and we probably wouldn't have this opportunity of getting invited to Korea and attend their baby's first birthday celebration. I owe the realization of this dream travel to her. Kamsahamnida!

The tomato juice we got to drink for the morning

Breakfast-Korean style!

Going back, we went to Mr Kim's place, where we were greeted with his very kind and generous parents. Also we were extremely delighted to finally be reunited with Ha Yun. She was only a few months old when we last saw her, but now she can stand on her own, still as cute as ever with additional funny face expressions that would really make you want to giggle and cuddle with her.

After a while, we managed to sneak out a tour of Busan with Ms. Maj and her mom as company. First we went to shopping boutiques in the quaintest of streets, stopping once in a while to the many cafes and dessert place that the city is peppered with.

After wandering around and getting lost from time to time, we reached our main destination, the Yongdusan park,which is home to Busan Tower. Leading up to Yongdusan Park is a series of 4 covered elevators, which makes getting up a lot easier. Getting down, however, is a different story, since you will be required to take the stairs (just a warning).

Admittedly, the Busan tower is not as best as the Namsan tower, but it certainly have nice areas where you can revel on the beauty of the statues, museums, and nature. What I enjoyed most is that the place has a relaxing and peaceful ambiance which makes you feel far away from all the stress and troubles. Feels like home indeed.

For the rest of the day, we got to walk more and got lost more here and there, we ate at a fast food store which is akin to Jollibee as according to Ms.Maj, we went off on a wrong station which got us into a pretty embarassing situation which I will not tell here, and we even got to meet a Korean guy in a train who understands 'Tagalog' and who claims Anjanette Abayari, Rosana Roces, and Maria Makiling as his ex-girlfriend, funny weird. These are crazy experiences I will enjoy years from now.

Ofcourse a Busan adventure would not be complete without indulging into the coffee shops. One of the famous cafes is 'Angel-in-us-coffee' shop, To our utter wonderment, we were greeted with lovely angel wings which really makes this place feel like heaven on earth. This has got to be my favourite among the coffee shops I've tried in Korea. I would really love to spend a day on this perfect spot.

To cap off the day, Mr Kim's sister, invited us to drink soju and beer.  I honestly love soju, I even got a bit giddy and excited that we'll be drinking soju with real Koreans in Korea! That's the dream!
True enough, Koreans are hard drinkers. They actually mix beer and soju, which they have us drink bottoms up! There were korean grapes, which is super delicious, and chicken as chaser. We had so much fun, I super like how unni is so friendly to us. We even got to have face time with the other sisters and their kids. We had too much soju and beer, in effect all I can remember, before my mind went black out, was having love shot with unni while cheering "for the skin!"

It was only our third day in Korea yet we have already adapt well to their culture. The Kim family made us really feel at home and gave us an insight on how to live Korean way. I will forever be grateful to them.

♥ Ade