Buddha’s Birthday Parade

May 16th there was a big parade to celebrate Buddha’s birthday.  Fortunately for us it started right by our apartment at Gudeok Stadium and we just kind of stumbled on it.  The parade went from our neighborhood to Busan station.  We watched part of the parade from a little baseball bar that overlooks the street where the parade was so that’s why some of the pictures are from above.

This is part of the ceremony that they had in Gudeok Stadium which is where the parade started. We watched for a while but then decided that since we were hungry we'd go get some food before the parade started.

Yay the parade finally started. This is one of the buddha floats.

A lotus flower float (this was one of my favorites)

This is us about to get pushed out of the way by the parade. This Korean man in the audience kept taking Patrick's camera and offering very kindly to take our picture. The only problem was that everytime he did it it was like the first time he ever held a camera and it would take him a good two minutes or so to figure out how to take a picture. By which time the float or whatever would already have passed us.

Unfortunately this pictured turned out a bit fuzzy but this lady just perfectly shows the mood of the parade. Everybody seemed so happy to be a part of it.

We weren't really sure what this motorcycle riding, fire shooting pig had to do with the rest of the parade but it definitely won the prize for funniest float.

Lots of ladies with lanterns...

... and finally some more lanterns.

Our New Home

This was the state my bag was in by the time it got to Busan. I guess it goes to show that you get what you paid for and I paid exactly $20 for this bag. At least I didn't lose anything out of it.

Our apartment as seen from standing in the front entrance...

... and now standing in the kitchen...

... and the kitchen itself. The apartment isn't huge but it's a good size for the two of us and it's starting to feel like home.

This is me eating a giant bowl of kimchi jiggae at the bar down the street from our house. We're pretty sure that the lady running the bar assumed we couldn't handle the spiciness and watered it down for us because she warned us that it was spicy and then it was totally not spicy at all.

This is Gudeok stadium which is right near our house. The weekend before last it was all full of people getting ready for the Buddha's birthday parade. But we thought that it was a festival and that there would be a show so we went in and sat down. It took us about an hour or so to realize that we were watching the dress rehearsals/organizations, at which point we gave up and went to the beach.

The lighthouse and breaker near Songdo Beach. It only takes about 15 minutes on the city bus to get to this beach so we'll be spending plenty of time there once the weather decides to warm up.

Patrick with the beach in the background. I was having some camera issues this day so I didn't get a really good shot of the beach itself. But it's pretty nice.

Now me in front of the beach. Notice the fake whale in the background. There's also a big ring with fake dolphins jumping through it.

These people seemed to be doing some kind of ritual. They kept tossing buckets of worms and praying. We weren't really sure what was going on but it looked pretty cool.

Starfish

You can't really tell in this picture but these are little tiny clams, they were each only about 1-1.5 cm wide and they were all over the rocks we were walking on.

Our First Week Back in Korea

Settling In

We’ve been back in Korea for one week now and it’s hard to believe that we’ve only been here for such a short time.  It already feels like home.  This time around we’re in Busan, which is on the south coast of Korea.  Coming back to Korea for a second time is so much easier than coming the first time.  For example when you arrive the first time everything seems so different and complicated.  Going to a restaurant or a grocery store is such a big deal.  This time there is none of that.  We still have the excitement of exploring a new city but little of the stress.

Work

We got pretty lucky in our first week in that Wednesday was Children’s Day.  Now ordinarily if a holiday fell on Wednesday it would be kind of annoying but for us to be able to work two days, then have a day off to rest, clean our apartment and unpack was pretty great.  So far our school seems quite good.  Our schedule this time is 2:00-10:00 but our first class isn’t actually until 4:30.  So when we arrive we have 2 and a half hours of prep time.  Most of our classes are literature based and most of the novels we are using are classics.  The school very recently changed management and it seems like the new management is very organized and is getting off on the right foot.

Home

Our apartment is a large studio, I measured it out with my feet and it’s roughly 500 square feet or so.  I suppose that by North American standards it would be quite small but it’s really all we need.  We spent a good part of Wednesday cleaning it and arranging the furniture the way we want it so now it already feels like home.  The neighbourhood is pretty nice.  There are mountains all around us and we only live about a ten minute walk away from school.  We found a cool shopping area called PIFF square which is only 2 subway stops away so I think we’ll be spending lots of time there.

Exploring

One of the great things about living in a new city is that you get to explore.  Considering that we’ve only been here a week I think we’re doing pretty well so far.  Last Sunday we met up with Patrick’s sister for lunch near Busan Station and walked around there.  We also went to Beomnaegol to find the Kyobo bookstore (yes we are both such nerds that on our first day back in the country our priority was to find the bookstore).  Wednesday as I said earlier we went to PIFF square and Friday night we went to this cool bar in a cave with one of the other teachers.  Yesterday we went to this big riverside park near Sasang station.  Patrick had seen that there was a big skate park there so we went to check that out figuring he could skate while I went for a run.  Unfortunately the skate park was pretty lame, but the running was great.  There was a 5km long trail that went all over the park.  Today we did some exploring a little closer to home and found a good grocery store that isn’t too far away.

That’s about it for now.  I haven’t really taken any pictures yet but I’ll work on that this week and maybe next week’s post will be a little photo essay about our new life here.