Chuseok

Korea celebrates their own sort of Thanksgiving - Chuseok (chew-sock). It's a harvest festival, and it has to do with when the moon is at the height of its awesomeness. Depending on when it falls in the week, the companies and schools may give people anywhere from a whole week to 3 days off. This year I lucked out and we got a whole week off of school! I went on a trip with All The Single Ladies (Meg, Meg, Jen, Becky and I - the single lady new hires) to Japan! This is the chronicle of our adventure :)

On September 14th, we met at Hagye station at 7am... and left on the subway around 720. We wanted to get to the train station near downtown early in case there was any confusion getting our tickets. We have some great colleagues at our school who helped us a lot with booking parts of our trip, including renting a car, hotels, and train tickets. We arrived with plenty of time, got our tickets, and chilled on the platform enjoying some dunkin doughnuts coffee. The train was pretty empty, but it filled up at the next stop. It was a 4ish hour journey from Seoul to Busan (NW corner of SoKo to the SE corner). We weren't all sitting together, which was fine because most of us slept or read anyway. 

Once we arrived in Busan, we used their underground (with our same public transportation card! go TMoney!) to get to our "hostel". I put it in quotations because they called it a hostel, but it was really a hotel. So nice! The view was pretty great, and we all got to share a room with our own bathroom - pretty sure it was a family room... but we're pretty much family so its all good :)

 our "hostel" room

 chalkboard walls - lots of different languages!

view from le hostel

We checked out the beach quick, found some delicious indian food, and then went back to the hostel to get our swim suits and spend some serious time in the sand :)

Once the sun was going down, we headed back to the hotel to order some pizza. I believe I've posted previously that pizza here commonly comes with corn and sometimes sweet potato.... we asked the man at the desk to order pizza for us (I'm not THAT good at Korean, yet!) but said ... please no corn. He recommended a pizza and we were like, sure... why not!? It had corn on it. Thanks, Neil! Anyway, we took it up to the roof and enjoyed the skyline with some sweet potato, corn, and cheese pizza (which grew on me, I'm not going to lie). We went and chilled on the beach some more in the dark, found some awful mexican food - I think I ate a block of cheese in a crispy tortilla... and walked home. I consequently experienced heart burn for the first time. Uff da! 

September 15th

We woke up at the butt crack of dawn and cab'd it to the International Ferry Port. It was more than a challenge to get there, however. We required two cabs - 5 girls... lots of stuff. I was in the "lead" cab, and we told the driver the station to go to. He drove, asked us questions, the two cabbies stopped next to each other (IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD) and shouted, we took off.... he asked more questions in Korea. We showed him the map. Everybody was freaking out. Finally the cabbies just stopped (not in the middle of the road, thank the Lord) and chatted extensively about where we were going. A Korean/Canadian man saw that we were having trouble and asked us where we wanted to go. We told him the International Ferry (which is what we had told the cabbie 15 times). He looks at the cab driver and says "international ferry" but with a Korean accent... and the cabbie says yes. Seriously!? It's like "costUHco" versus "costco". COME ON! Anyway, we got there. Figured out our tickets.... got bumped to a later ferry somehow.

 Meg and Becky on the boat

 Our ferry: The Beetle

Check ya later, Busan!

Once we got off the ferry we went through customs and met a nice police man. I think he was looking for foreigners doing "Visa Runs". I was unfamiliar with this concept but the single ladies told me some visas require you to leave the country every so often. He helped us locate our rental car, shepherding us into the station and calling someone on his phone.

 Helpful Tsushima police

 The lady who rented us the car with her incorrect signage: "Mr. Mergan"... uh... do you mean Ms. Megan?

The Merg-Mobile! (A Nissan March)

We drove to our hotel - navigating in Japanese, driving on the wrong side of the road.... lots of laughter! We made it, but were too early to check in. We changed into our swimsuits, and asked for help regarding where to eat lunch. They gave us a map, and we were on our way. When we got to the restaurant, it looked closed... but it wasn't. There weren't any pictures on the menu, so we just pointed to what other people were eating. Ended up with some pork cutlet soup, some vegetables in goo, noodles, and ... more stuff? Way too much food.

The restaurant.

 Pork cutlet soup?

look at all dat food.

Next up, we headed to the beach and enjoyed the sand and sun :) Our hotel had its own beach, which was empty for most of the time we were there. There was a sweet man made break water, and some rock forms that we adventured onto. Just beautiful. So calming.

 The view of our beach from the hotel.

Hotel Kamisou! Great place.

That night we tried to get some sushi, but because it was Sunday, it was closed (or so we thought... can't read the Japanese). We ended up going to a restaurant that was straight out of the 70s, decorations wise. We ordered some salads with barbeque chicken - by salad, I mean cabbage shreds/fluff. We were pretty glad they had pictures on their menu :)

September 16

Woke up - had a delicious fish breakfast. Wait, what? Okay, so I wasn't so sold on it being delicious. The common reader may not know this - but I don't generally dig the sea food. I gave it a go, even though it came to me raw, and cooked right in front of me... eyes and all. There was some delicious tofu, and breakfast always came with a salad. A little hard to process at 8am but whatever! It's fine! (had to Sandra Peter it up). That day we headed out to drive the whole island. It was beautiful - so much coast, lots of mountains, coves, beaches... awesome. We saw some ruins from the war - a giant gun turret thing? You can tell, I'm a real war historian. We also stopped at a scenic stop - complete with pagoda and informational boards (my mom has rubbed off on me). We made it to Tsushima city in time to eat a lunch in their mall. Pictures on the menu! Hooray! I ordered what I thought would be a noodle soup with mushrooms or chicken (big white circular things in the soup)... which turned out to be something I'd describe as goo balls. Legit. Like, liquidy, sweet dumplings that had been fried.. but not finished. Not a fan, but whaterr. We headed up to the public foot bath, getting a little lost. Those are the tiniest roads I've ever experienced. Along with finding the footbath, we found what we assume to be the only white guy on the island. He was doing an interview for a Japanese TV show... so we ended up getting interviewed for Japanese tv. Why not!? Drove home, ending up in a fantasy freaky forest right after the sun had set - we tried to plan enough time to not be on the road at dark... but... island time, you know. Went into town to try a different restaurant - no pictures on their menu. There were, however, pictures on their sign outside the restaurant... so I brought the sign inside. The ladies were more than amused, and it all worked out well :)

At the foot bath

 pictures helping us get dinner!

 japanese tv. no joke.

 drying squid. yum.

 breakfast. yummmmmmm?

Becky and I in the water at the shrine we visited

September 17

I woke up and went for a run - its really easy to get up early when its beautiful and sunny! Such great views! Breakfast that day was cooked for us - I think they knew we didn't know what we were doing, because they didn't bring us any more raw fish while we stayed there, haha. We headed to the "hot spring" after breakfast, not really sure what to expect. What we found out was that it was a naked bath house - pretty common here... but still a surprise. It was a smaller operation, as we were on a small island with fewer people. There were three hot pools (two with jets), one cold bath, lots of sitting showers, a power blast shower (which was just a little too intense for me), and a sauna. No orientation - we just kind of watched and did what the adjumas did. I lost a lot of layers of skin... and am now a much smoother, cleaner person. (Side note, if you want to know more about this... read this) We ate some ice cream from a vending machine, tried out some massage chairs, and dropped Jen off at the beach. Meg, Meg, Becky and I went into town and finally got some sushi! The chef knew a bunch of english, so we ordered a "sampler" for each of us, along with a bowl of noodles, and some sake. I ate some octopus, among other things. I tried it all. I liked almost all of it. By the way, sushi here is what I've known as "nagiri" back in the states - not rolls, but just slices of raw fish over rice. We got a bento box (take out) for Jen, and headed to the beach. The rest of the night, Becky and I went down to the beach while the other ladies went into town to return our rental car and pick up more sushi for dinner. 

September 18

This was our last day in Tsushima. Meg, Becky and I woke up early to watch the sun rise on breakwater. Meg tries to do that every time she leaves a country/state/location on vacay - what a great ritual (I might steal it from now on).We went back to bed, waking up to pack up and check out, leaving our bags in their storage room. Meg walked into town and explored while Meg, Becky, Jen and I spent some more time on the beach. We worked very hard via translator apps to order a taxi at the appropriate time to take us (and all our stuff) into town. We met up at the sushi restaurant for one last delicious meal (yes, three meals in a row of sushi... except for breakfast which included fish anyway) before getting on the ferry back to Busan. We got to the port earlier than planned, so we just chilled out at the port. Once we arrived in Busan we took a taxi to our Hostel (same company, different building). We showered and went to The Wolfhound, an Irish pub. I shamelessly ordered chicken tenders and chips (fries) with a double Jameson ginger which ended up being a glass of whiskey, but who's complaining. Played some darts, met some guys from the UK, a couple from South Africa, and a girl from Hopkins! Night life is seriously bumping in Busan, which I really didn't expect. 

September 19

We made our way to the bus with a couple of issues... but it happened! What we didn't really know is that we were traveling ON the holiday, which to me means empty roads. Like, the roads are never packed ON christmas. Not the case here. Our bus ride from Busan to Seoul took twice as long as the train because we sat still for quite a while. Uff da. Anyway, took a taxi from the bus station home... and went to bed with serious intent to sleep.