Don't Mess With Busan

Last Saturday people from all over Korea converged on the city of Busan for the Fireworks Festival. This included a group of six of us – Jeannine, Mark, Peter, Dave, Amanda, and I – who traveled together from Daegu. Busan is about an hour southeast of Daegu by the KTX train, or an hour and forty minutes by the slow train. It’s the second-largest city in Korea and right on the coast; although the organization of the trip was last-minute, I was really excited to finally visit. Busan is famous for beaches, mountains, and awesome festivals – the International Film Festival was the weekend just before the Fireworks Festival.

Busan did not disappoint. We got off to a rocky start – of the six of us, Dave barely made it onto the train that morning (he was literally still standing when it started moving) and Mark missed it completely. However, he managed to get a later train and arrived in Busan very soon after we did. We bought our day passes for the subway system and took a long ride to one of Busan’s famous beaches, Hyundae Beach. It was absolutely beautiful, especially after being in all the dirt, noise, and concrete of downtown Daegu for so long. The weather was cloudy and breezy but warm, and we all took our shoes and socks off to wade in the chilly water, take pictures, and collect some seashells. Just that hour (or less) that we spent at the beach made me fall in love with Busan, and I can’t wait to go back – next spring when I can actually lay out at the beach!

Even though the Hyundae was great, the adventures did not end there. We were all hungry, and like any coastal city Busan is famous not only for beaches but seafood! So we found a great restaurant on the 13th floor of a building overlooking the beach. Besides the great view, we had an amazing meal – the waitresses grilled abalone, shrimp, and pork at our table, along with the usual garlic and side dishes. Abalone is a rare and very expensive shellfish, at least in the States, but we had as much as we could eat, plus beer, for about $20 per person. And the abalone was still alive when they brought it to our table! We watched it squirm on the grill and then ate it right out of the shell – a little disgusting but soooo delicious, and again considering the price, probably not something I’ll do often after I leave Korea!

After our meal it was back on the subway to another beach, Gwangalli Beach, for the fireworks show. It was a beautiful setting – Gwangalli Beach is in a little cove, with the Gwangan Bridge stretching across the water in front of it. The bridge was lighted once the sun went down, and there were small boats with giant TV screens placed along it facing the beach. The crowd was unreal – 1.5 million people on a beach less than a mile long – but luckily we had some connections with people who held spots for us. We had just enough room for everyone to sit down, close to the water right in the middle of the beach. And the show was absolutely stunning. It was set to music as well as words and pictures on the TV screens, and just so over-the-top compared to shows that I’ve seen in the States. The pictures don’t do it justice.

Getting back to the train station in Busan after the fireworks was pretty scary. 1.5 million people all left at the same time, making their way for a select few subway stations. The six of us clung to each other and formed a chain, and Mark led the way through masses of cars, vendors, mopeds, and people. There were cops at the subway entrances, and we barely got into one before they started shutting them down! Underground the crowd was just awful – people wall to wall, pushing and yelling and trying to get through the turnstiles with their tickets, and then we had to line up to get into the subway cars, which were also packed. We were going through the turnstile, after having fought our way to the front of that crowd, when Mark realized he had lost his wallet on the beach! Dave went with him to look for it and we agreed to all try to find each other at the train station. Miraculously, our friend Chris, who stayed behind at the beach, actually found Mark’s wallet right after we left, and Mark and Dave also somehow managed to make it through the crowd to find us at the train station in time for our train.

And it was lucky that they did, because we were booked on the very last train out of Busan that night – 11pm. We were in our seats waiting for the train to leave, and for some reason that we couldn’t figure out, Koreans kept coming up to us and trying to take our seats. We argued with them until one passenger looked at our tickets and pointed out that the date on the ticket was for the 16th. And yes, last Saturday was the 17th. Jeannine had accidentally purchased the tickets for the wrong day! The conductor came up and wanted us to get off the train – which was the last train of the day back to Daegu, and just seconds away from departing – to purchase standing-room tickets. It never would have worked, and we would have been sleeping on the beach that night had not Dave been along. He luckily can speak Korean, and he convinced the conductor that we had purchased our tickets just that day, and the ticket office must have made a mistake. The conductor left us alone and we spent an hour and forty minutes riding the rails Great Depression-style – in a compartment between two cars, sitting on the floor and sipping soju from a shared bottle. Jeannine was upset by her mistake but it was honestly pretty fun, not to mention the fact that we were all so grateful just to be on that train in any way, shape or form. Never have so many things going wrong – Mark missing the first train, then losing his wallet, almost being crushed by a major crowd both above and below ground, barely getting a ride home, and the boys also dropping and smashing a glass bottle in a convenience store – provided such an amazing day. We were thankful to make it back to Daegu in one piece, but we also can’t wait to see Busan again!