Busan

Headin' South on the KTX express train I found myself spending my Friday night in a comfy chair alone with my iPod for 3 hours. And that was only the beginning of a series of delights that strung together my weekend in Busan. I arrived in Korea's 3rd largest city, host of the recent APEC conference and home of my good frined Eunah, whom I'd sojourned to see.

Among my Busanian adventures included the undispensable trip to the Fish Market where we pranced and skirted around giant plastic basins of splishing, sploshing sea-creatures. Some sported tentacles, others fins, and still others red rubber golashes.

Everywhere you turned someone was thrusting a limp and dripping, pale blue gelantious mass at you in an attempt to convince you it was delicious. I was not easily persuaded. No, even as I was splattered with the backsplash of an octopus in its death throws, I somehow resisted their fresh and flailing salespitch.


On to the rocky southern coastline where Eunah and I scrambled around rock outcroppings and clifs and saw the southernmost islands of Japan on the horizon. Then we headed back into town for a night on the beach, illuminated by fortune teller tents and amateur firecrackers. Sealife, coastal climbing, beach lights, all in all a very fun and full day.

Seafood Market

  

New Years in Korea, can't believe it's for the second time now.

Celebrating the coming of a new year has always been a favorite occassion of mine. And, as snowboarding has recently been a favorite passtime of mine, the opportunity to combine these two sources of delight could not be passed up. A 3 hour bus ride delivered us to the base of YongPeyong Ski resort where we regrouped with some friends who'd arrived earlier and secured an ong-dol (heated floor) hostel room for 10! Of course there had to be a couple matress fights and a territorial declaring of space but once that was taken care of it was time to suit up and hit the slopes.

We got night passes and rode for a solid 5 hours under the 50 ft. flood lights. The snow was suprisingly adequate and it wasn't long before my boarding legs were revived after several years of dormancy. Sticking with my buddies Simon, Eddie, and Andrew, had me feeling pretty hard core by the end of the evening. I was even attempting some jumps (*operative word: attempting) and tackling black slopes.

Then it was time to prepare for my favorite part: The Countdown!!! With bottles of wine in our gloved hands and rosey gin blossom noses, we marched out to the base of the mountain to join the throngs of celebrants. As midnight brought us into a new year, we watched a line of tiny torches snake its way down the mountain. The wine warming my exhausted body, surrounded by friends and another day on the mountain to look forward to, my entrance into 2006 was nothing short of brilliant.