Busan - Part 2

The next day is beautiful and sunny. But we are far from the beach. Nonetheless, we trek to the Busan tower, which is a tower built on a little mountain. We rejoice in the fact that we don't need to hike up this little mountain. It has 4 long escalators (not even kidding).

Busan Towahh!

At the summit (or whatever you want to call it), there are plenty of little sites to see. The first thing you see is the new years bell. Which is used to bring in the new year (correct me if I'm wrong). It is of course housed in a beautiful traditional building that is a staple of Korea.

Perhaps the greatest bell I have ever seen.

Buddha's birthday was coming up so everything was decorated in preparation for the event. All these folk displays were set up. They were made out of a thin paper-like material and I'm guessing that they light up at night. Would have been cool to see, but we had limited time here, and crowds are not super fun when you have a stroller to push around.

There was also a little love seat where you can take a picture with your loved ones. On the fence were a bunch of locks that had love messages on them. You can't take them off the fence. It is a symbol that you are locked together forever (unless you know the combination :P ).

Love my family :)

After paying $5, we go up the tower and are treated with some crazy nice views of the city:

Oh my... next day, we hike up that mountain in the background.

Crazy roof building is the fish market.

Hannah doesn't seem to know where she is or what's going on. We certainly are troll parents because we take her to all these awesome places and she'll never remember them. At least we have pictures :)

After the tower stuff, we check out the music museum that is next door. It had instruments that were native to Korea and there were a lot foreign instruments as well. What was cool about the museum is that on the second floor, every single instrument is available for you to play.

Next, we meet our friend Jin Hwan, and go to another temple called Beomeosa. This is one of the biggest urban temples in Korea. By the entrance, they have a ton of lanterns set up Buddha's birthday. Makes for a nice shot.

There are a ton of these buildings around the area, as at one point in history, over a 1000 monks stayed here.

Ma girls.

There are also a lot of these beautifully crafted things (I can't articulate very well):

The water here is special. Folklore says it comes from a golden well and the water never runs out. I have to agree as it ran the whole time I was there. It was also delicious.

After going home for a little rest, we meet up our friend SangMi to go to a baseball game. The game is like nothing else I have ever seen. It is one big party. You can bring in your own food and drinks, so everyone is bringing in their own case of beer and making pyramids with the empty cans. Every hit, strikeout, homerun, etc the crowd goes insane as if a championship was just won. Literally everyone is dancing, singing songs, etc.

I'm going to attempt to post a video here to try so you can experience some of the craziness:

Near the end of the game, the whole crowd does the "rally" caps thing, but they use orange plastic bags.

When a pitcher comes in relief, he is delivered in a Mini Cooper Convertible.

The bullpen pitchers are lazy.

The next day, we go to Taejongdae park. It is a nature trail with temples, observatories, and it also has a lighthouse. It is a long walk. About 6km, most of that is uphill in flip flops. Here we go again...

Map of our ridiculous hike.

The observatory is neat. It has a few restaurants and a great view of the ocean.

Random isle all lonesome.

Walking down a bit further, there is a neato lighthouse. We had to do a fair hike down the side of the mountain to get here, but it's pretty neato site.

After this fun, we go back to the hotel to pick up our bags and prepare to leave Busan. Not before hitting up a sushi restaurant first. You always gotta have sushi in a city near the ocean. This is one of the best sushi places I have ever been to. It has 2 sushi trains. One slow one that has all regular menu food, and a fast "bullet" train that the chefs send out for specialty orders.

Mouth is watering just thinking about this meal again.

Well, that's it for Busan... ah wait! Just about to leave, but then we remember the famous korean pancake (podaek) that a street vendor is selling nearby. What's special about this is that there are various nuts inside the brown sugar gooeyness. If you are ever in Busan, you need to find this. And eat it.

OMNOMNOMNOM!!