A Weekend to remember . . . . . .

Day 1

So, after some planning and thinking and rethinking. I’m off to Busan, one of South Korea’s finest coastal cities, for three days!! (as long as the forecast of thunderstorms everyday is wrong). So, the trip to the train station which is supposed to take me about 50 minutes takes an hour 20, but it’s all good because with my wise ways I give myself lots of extra time and arrive 1 minute after I’m supposed to meet my friend and traveling companion. We pick up the tickets I’ve reserved and 5 minutes later I realize . . . mine is gone!! I search through my bags – nothing. I scour the floor we’ve walked across and notice with a grimace it’s been freshly swept, seeing little ladies swiftly push the garbage into little black bins. So I take my reservation sheet, go back in line and try with all my might to explain to the Korean salesperson what has happened and if I can get a new ticket, after about 7 minutes, with 2 minutes before we have to board the train finally they understand and tell me, no – I must buy another ticket but if I find the old one I can get reimbursed. So I buy it and we dash madly to the track . . . discovering it’s the wrong one. Back up the stairs, down the hall breathless – whooo – we’re on. Cheapskate that I am I ponder my carelessness and am frustrated that I’ve lost the (measly) $12 of the cost of another ticket.

Busan station has a beautiful courtyard, with rows of trees, photography, a fountain and a woman singing beautiful music offkey. After finding a hostel and checking in we’re back on the metro on our way to the beach. I’m carrying a little tiny black bag and Leona is amazed at the amount of things I’ve managed to stuff into it – oh yeah! And then, as I take out my book to read – aha! my ticket. At least I wasn’t so absentminded as to let it drop to the floor. I merely put it in my bag, it slipped into a page and I didn’t think to look into my book. So we arrive at the station for Haeundae beach, walking down the little streets, looking at the vendors, taking in the mix of salt air, roasting meat and corn, and every now and then the sewer whiff. Sun glaring heat sweltering, but caressed with the occasional sea breeze. The beach is incredible – not for it’s beauty, but for the massive amounts of people!! You can hardly see the sand or the first 50 metres of water. After walking around some, finding a very posh hotel to change in (because we can’t see any changing stalls or washrooms on the beach) we stash our bags under a lifeguard tower and head to the water. (I know that may sound crazy but everyone assured us how incredibly safe Korea was, that you could leave your stuff anywhere and not have to worry about it, and there were many other bags there). The water’s shockingly cold, but wonderful. I dive in to discover it’s about 3 feet deeper than I expected! An incredible drop from the shore. But it’s good. After awhile we leave in search of some food (meat on a stick and fried whole potatoes). Then we happen upon the practice session for a bikini fashion show.

OH wow, it was hilarious. Pretty much the epitome of cheesy! And the poor girls. At first they were strutting up and down just holding the bikinis on hangers. At this point they were very confident in their stylish clothes (fashion is huge here). Then this goofy guy – a director of some sort comes up and starts trying to teach them how to dance for it. His moves were okay . . . but he didn’t quite follow them through and created quite a site! They had this HORRIBLE music on, funky, but horrible. This tone deaf man with a garbly voice singing ‘Ooops, I did it again’. That’s right, the Britany Spears song. To add to the scene the middle age woman starts dancing to the songs in the street. I don’t just mean she was swaying to the music, she was full on dancing, swaying to the music, ‘grinding’ with the air – and if anyone walked in her space she would yell and shoo them off. We’re assuming she was drunk. We saw her a few hours later again with a foreigner and a huge bottle of spirits. Oh – another weird little thing to mention that happened there. We were sititng on little stone stools watching all this and eating our friend potatoes. The last one had been there for awhile and since Leona said she didn’t want it I placed my pick in it and began to eat, I looked up at the stage and then back to Leona and the empty carton was gone! Vanished. We looked to the left and the right, on the ground. Nothing! This was almost instantaneous. I hadn’t even finished my first bite of potato. Then as we’re laughing in amazement some Korean man comes up to me (my mouth is still full of potato) with a great big camera and huge zoom. And snaps a picture of me (about a foot away from my face!).

Following this, we went back to the beach, dashed our stuff (we still hadn’t found where the lockers were) and headed to the ocean. And oh! It was wonderful. The waves were the biggest ones I’d seen in years and I just reverted to my childhood delight! The thrill of pretending I was dolphin that I used to indulge in for hours came back to me.

As I swam, dove, jumped and let the cool water flow over me I thanked God for this moment and felt incredibly blessed to be there. After awhile I thought I should head back to the shore where Leona was and see if she wanted to go or something. I couldn’t find her, but headed to our bags . . . I mean bag. Leona’s was right where we left it – but not mine. Some people had put their hats and shoes where I’d left mine and they were kind of buried in the sand. I dug around – Leona came back and said she thought I’d taken mine. We both just kind of stood there in disbelief. Korea’s so safe, everyone said it. There were a few other bags under the tower as well. But mine was gone. My bag with about $120 dollars in it, my registration card, identification, credit cards, bus card, digital camera, batteries, pants, underwear, bra, notebook, phone numbers of all my contacts in Korea, pictures, sunglasses and pens was gone.

Recognizing the need to find someone who spoke English we headed back to the Marriot hotel. In my bathing suit which was covered with sand, along with the rest of my body (not only from swimming but from digging around looking for my bag) I walked into the overly air conditioned hotel. (Luckily I was swimming in little board shorts) The concierge couldn’t really speak English but he understood enough to call the police for me. Up until now I was kind of in shock but as I spoke to him the tears started coming. Embarrassed by my sad looking state and muddiness I joined Leona who was outside and waited for the cops outside for about 20 minutes. When they finally showed up neither of them could speak a word of English. Though it wasn’t amusing at the time, looking back I imagine it was a pitifully funny sight. Here’s this foreigner, sand covering her body, sopping wet, standing in front of an extremely posh hotel, crying as she tries to explain what has happened to two big gruff, Korean policemen. Realizing the dilemma they called for a concierge who spoke some English. (Leona told me afterwards she really wanted to snap pictures during this plight but was afraid it would be insensitive - haha, it would have been fun to have - and I'm sure would have added greatly to the Koreans confusion over these hard to understand foreigners!)

Despite my efforts to explain the concierge completely disregarded me and spoke only to Leona. Forgetting the differences of languages I had been saying that my purse was stolen. In Korea (like in England) that means only a wallet. So they were thinking that I just lost it and didn’t understand all of the things I was saying were in it. We finally got it explained that it was a bag, that no I had not lost it – we knew this because Leona’s bag was right beside mine – after awhile one of the policemen motioned for us to follow him and we walked about 10 minutes to the beach police station. The tourist information was adjoined and a young lady who volunteered there was able to interpret things for me and help get a report written. Unfortunately I didn’t know my phone number or address because they were in my bag, I didn’t have the phone number of any contacts – like my school director, and I hadn’t memorized my alien registration number because I’d only had the card for about 3 days.

We were in there for a LONG time. They were trying to call Visa and cancel my card but it wouldn’t work. So I went online to my banking site and got the number there. Success! . . .But no. It wouldn’t work. Their phones couldn’t call overseas even though it was collect. So, Leona gets out her cell phone and starts calling friends back in Daegu asking if anyone has a phone card she can get the number and pin to. After a couple tries she gets someone and call my visa company – only to have it cut off! Ugh, I should also note that I’m using their computer with sand ALL over my hands, and as all of this is happening carts start coming into the tourist building and being lined up in front of the desk. Fruit drink carts, meat on a stick carts, potato carts, I spot some squid on one. Accompanied by disgruntled Korean vendors and domineering young policemen. No one in the office seems to pay it any mind and I’m utterly confused as I’m trying to get through again to someone who can help me and being forced to answer tons of questions to make sure I wasn’t trying to cancel someone else’s card I imagine. Because of course I’d want to do that. (I found out later that the carts were being confiscated because they were selling on the beach and that’s illegal). There was nothing else that we could really do at this point so we gave them Leona’s number to call if anything turned up and were on our way. Leona asked if I wanted to head back to the hostel (which was about an hour subway ride away) but I figured I might as well not waste the rest of the day. So, we headed back to find a hotel and clean up a little bit. (Not at the Marriot. I wasn’t showing my face again there.) To add to all of this (and guys if you’re squeamish about female matters skip on to the next paragraph) I was having some serious pain that I’m sure all you thick thighed women can relate to on a hot and sticky day – the sand covering me only added to it. The shorts I was wearing were short, and flimsy so it was pretty much the equivalent of a skirt and by the end of all that walking around my thighs were bright red (the next morning I woke up with little scabs – it actually broke the skin). If you know what that feels like it just adds to the stress of the moment I was going through! **(Our fake me looking miserable pic)

On the way to looking for a hotel with a public bathroom a parade passed us by – heading for the site of the ‘Cool Summer Festival’. And anyway, we found our restroom – amazingly, I was able to fit into Leona’s pants (as she had a skirt with her) and we went to the festival. They had belly dancers – it was amazing. So beautiful. And there was this one little girl like 6 years old dancing with all these young women. She was phenomenal. Each move was perfect and precise. . . we were hoping to see the fashion show but after a number of long speeches by what I imagine were Korea politicians it started to pour! And I mean POUR. It was soft for a few minutes but then just bucketed down. We managed to get a plastic bag for Leona’s bag then, thourougly wet, managed to buy an umbrella – just in time for the torrential fall to subside into an average shower. Ah well! We had fun splashing in the puddles.!

Not a whole lot more happened that night – besides walking around for an hour or so looking for restaurants with pictures so we could order. But to no avail – we ended up going to an E-Mart (kind of like Zellers or Wall-Mart) and ordering what we thought was a vegetable noodle dish – only to find out it had squid tentacles! I ate them alright – they looked awful but didn’t really taste like anything – that’s until Leona pointed out that every time she looked at them they reminded her of Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean – my squid eating ended at that moment.