on saturday, december 9th, i met hyejin and soyoung at seoul's express bus terminal and caught a bus for the five hour trip to korea's second largest city, 부산 (busan). it's located on the southeastern tip of the korean peninsula, and i was looking forward to it since i'd never been there before. after arriving at the bus station around 4:00p, we caught the subway and rode into town, stopping at 서면역 (seomyun station). we exited through the large lotte department store and went out looking for a specific restaurant hyejin knew about.

because busan is located along the sea, it is famous for its delicious seafood, especially raw fish. we had an amazing seafood dinner, everything was so fresh and of the highest quality, it was great.

we didn't get to see much of the actual city of busan. after dinner the plan was to head out to hyejin's parents' house out in a more rural area north of the city to stay there. first we stopped off for some delicious cart food snacks to take back with us.

getting to the house required riding the subway back uptown, a bus ride into the countryside, and finally a taxi. hyejin was really excited about the 노래방(noraebang, korean karaoke) machine they had upstairs, so once we got there we spent the whole night up there singing.

it was dark when we arrived, so i couldn't really get a good look at the outside of the house or the surrounding area until the next morning.

i've known hyejin since 1999, but this was the first time i ever met her father. he was out of town and arrived late after we'd gone to sleep, so i met him in the morning when we got up. being married with two daughters, i think he was glad to have another man around, and next thing i knew we were having a beer together before ten in the morning. he once worked for the hilton hotel in seoul and could speak english well. he is very passionate about gardening, his hobby in retirement, and proudly explained to me that he grows everything strictly organic. later we had a deliciously fresh 삼겹살 (samgyeopsal, grilled pork) lunch with many vegetables he grew. the meat came directly from someone he knew in the area who raises pigs.

in the afternoon we sang some more songs in the upstairs noraebang, part of the time with hyejin's father. he sung such hits as the righteous brothers' version of unchained melody. around 1:30p he gave us a ride back to bus station and we caught a bus back up to seoul, arriving around 7:00p. it was a nice relaxing trip, but we spent a lot of the time on the bus and i wished i'd gotten more of a chance to see busan. in the bus along the way i got some shots of the countryside.

tagged: busan countryside ddeokbokki fish food korean noraebang odaeng sashimi seafood travel trip