Haeundae Beach Madness

-
This weekend was nutso. So much fun. After a rambunctious Friday night out, Brittany and I woke up and stumbled to the beach for...a DODGEBALL TOURNAMENT! Costumes were required. Our team was named "Necessary Roughness." It was great. Some of the teams (I'm thinking they were veterans to this occasion) were seriously decked out and one did a dance routine! Here's Brittany and I in our get up, getting psyched up. We had four matches, and ended up 2-2.


We played on Haeundae Beach, which is the most popular beach in Busan. Crowds of Koreans
stopped to match the hilarity and many took pictures of us. I mean, there were about 75 Westerners decked out in weird costumes on their beach! At the same time on the other end of the beach was a Kite festival, and there were hundreds of kites being flown throughout the whole day. It was amazing to be playing with this gorgeous background. The day was perfect, not too warm, slightly cloudy, so the sun wasn't overbearing. However, I did still manage to get the number 13 burned into my arm from where my war paint was.

On the way home, we walked through the Haeundae Market, which is crazy, yet I hear it doesn't even compare to the fish market in Nampo-dong, which I have yet to see. Here's a video of me walking through it:



(There's better video quality on youtube's site, if you click "watch in high quality" directly under the video.)

That night, the western bars in the Pusan National University (PNU) section of Busan put on a block party and deal that involved 6 bars. I think every single westerner in Busan was there. I met tons of people, and already have forgotten most names. The police showed up around 3:30, yet they don't have guns (I suppose there'll all in North Korea?), and didn't speak English, so they were pretty ineffectual. 6 cars and 10 cops stood in the middle of the street while the westerners barely glanced at them and continued to party. Then, they let one westerner get on the PA system because he spoke some Korean. However, they quickly changed their minds when the Westerner started going "WOOHOOOO!!!" into the loudspeaker. Haha. Great times. This last picture isn't exactly the spot I was in, but it is a pretty good representation of what the city looks like at night.

Go to this website to see more pictures: (Make sure it's all on one line).

http://picasaweb.google.com/k.a.sheridan01/KathleenSSlightly
FantasticalTales?authkey=ctSv3_mHS6k#

Next blog: my house and home! (Hopefully I'll get all settled in soon!)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Afternoon in La Calera

-
Image
One weekend, my friend Corrie asked if I wanted to wander outside of Bogotá for an afternoon. The answer was a resounding YES and we found a bus headed to La Calera for about $1.50. It only took 45 minutes and the drive took us up and above Bogotá, so we had some really picturesque views. The fun, winding roads reminded me of moped-ing in Bali...guess I need a moped now :) Once we arrived in La Calera, a very small town, we wandered through the streets to the main plaza. Since it was a lazy Sunday, there were also many lazy locals taking advantage of the calm. We all lounged in park benches in the plaza and watched the kids play with a ball in the middle. It fairly oozed small town vibe. Corrie, smart gal that she is, picked La Calera for one main reason: the food. We found our way to some food stalls and ordered some picada (I wrote about this dish before from Montserrate ). Even though the idea was the same, it was a slightly different variety. For example, less intestines and m...
Read more

A New Life in Bogota

-
Image
Here we are: my first week in Bogota! It all began with the flight, an easy, 5-hour direct flight from Atlanta. I even had a special guest to keep me company, a bobble head Rosie the Riveter! It was a going-away gift from my friend Sara, who told me it will remind me that YES, I can do it! I love it! I wonder where we will go together.... Now this is where it gets (more) interesting: At Georgia Tech, I had a student from Bogota (Natalia) who initially wanted me to stay with her family when I arrived. I thought that would be a bit much, so I turned it down. However, I did accept a ride from the airport because the plane would be arriving at 10:30pm. It was pretty funny to have Natalia’s mother, father, and older brother waiting for me with a sign that said “Kathleen!” I immediately realized how kind and generous they were, so I was not actually surprised when they just took me home with them. They were pretty much like “No, we’re your family now so you’re staying wi...
Read more

Museums of Shanghai

-
Image
I needed out at some of the museums of Shanghai, so let me give you a little taste of what I learned! The Shanghai Museum was my first stop, and it was phenomenal. First, it was free! Good job, China! Second, it had artifacts from thousands of years of Chinese history. As an American, that's hard to fathom. Imagine walking through galleries full of bronze, sculpture, ancient coins, and calligraphy scrolls. Some of my favorite things included traditional Chinese paintings, which were often scenic views of famous places in China, exquisite jade molded in shapes that ranged from name prints to elaborate dragons, and the ceramics, which included beautiful vases and tea and China sets (go figure). Another cool room was filled with ethnic minority costumes from the past. I thought it was really great that China chose to honor all of the minority groups in this way, especially since China is not well known for treating them equally (ahem, Tibet). I spent about 2 hours here, and I could ...
Read more