Continued: Another Amazing Day of Training; 추석 (Chusok) plans

To sum up last post...I love 성생님...and training days...

Today I met two American friends to go to Jalgachi Market (the Fish Market) and Busan Tower. It was a very fun day. The fish market - I wish I had pictures but I didn't take any because I didn't feel right taking pictures of things I wasn't intending on buying - was pretty crazy. Fish EVERYWHERE. All kinds, all sizes. Octopus - there was a lot of those. Stingray - pretty much everything you could imagine except whale, shark and dolphin. After walking through the fish market, we went out on the deck to see these views posted here - not too bad, eh? (Gotta love the mountains on the sea!!) Anyways..

After Jalgachi, we got some food off the streets before going to the Busan tower. This was my first experience with street vendor food. It wasn't bad! Actually it was quite good. I had Gimbop - its like a rice rolled in seaweed with pineapple bits and beans? in the middle. However, one thing I didn't know about street vendors is that they give you a ceramic bowl and you eat it right there. Which I think is great - reduces waste - but it was just a surprise. Anyway, lunch was delicious. Then we head off to the tower.

I got horrible pictures of the outside of the tower - I apologize for that - but below will have to suffice for now. What I failed to capture on camera is the long ascent to the tower - a very long staircase, building up to this very tall structure. The picture to the left is the summit of the ascent and the base of the tower, and the picture to the right is an attempt at showing the

neck of the tower.

Also, a few other pictures underneath show some scultpures at the base of the tower - they were pretty sweet.

Once we got to the base, we went into the building and bought tickets to go up to the Observatory. What a view! It's pretty amazing up there.



Yea...it was pretty nice up there...

So we stayed there for about a half

hour, and then walked around

Jalgachi for a bit (it is a pretty sweet

city - I loved it - there were Nike/

Adidas/New Balance/Patagonia/etc

stores everywhere, as well as stores

like Armani (I think I saw one there)

...I was a fan.

After that we went for some dinner and then just chilled around Busan.

It was fun but I am definitely a party pooper - I was ready to go home long before they were, and I had left my bag at one of their apartments (which had my wetsuit and bathingsuit and goggles and Korean books in it so I really did not want to leave it there...) so I waited with them for a bit so I could retrieve my bag that night. But since it was about 12a when I got to my friend's apartment, and the subway stops running at 11:30p, and I still don't know of any major landmarks (other than one which I was dubious about) near my apartment for a taxi, I decided to try and stay at my friend's. However, I wasn't getting much sleep, so at 2am I decide to try and get a taxi. Sure enough, the Mansion near my house (which I think most taxi drivers in my area would know but I wasn't really close to my area) wasn't familiar to the driver I hailed, so I just had him drop me off at a Subway station from where I knew how to get home...although it is a 40 minute walk...(closest subway...I know...bummer...) So I'm walking home at 3am. I know what you are thinking, bad idea - however, Korea is so amazingly safe that I didn't feel unsafe at any point. There were a few other people out as well so it wasn't so bad. I just wanted to get to my bed and prepare for tomorrow's festivities - going to lunch with a co-worker at her apartment and then going to a temple in Songjeong, which should be very fun (although I really need to get in a run tomorrow so I am kind of worried about fitting everything in...)

But it was a very interesting day, I learned a lot. Tomorrow should be similar! (But I miss weekend workouts!)