부처님 오신날!!!

We had a couple days of vacation last week, so 고 and I decided we would go and see some of Korea! We had the days off because it was Buddha's birthday on Thursday. The title, 부처님 오신날, literally means the day Buddha (부처) came to earth. So we reserved the train tickets and hotel and headed to 경주 (Gyeongju) for a couple days and then to 부산 (Busan -a port city which is Korea's second largest city).

We woke up at about 430am and got ready and headed to the subway. We had tickets to Daegu on the fast KTX train and then we had tickets for the slow train from Daegu to Gyeongju. The train went by fast as we filled it with music, sleep and of course, Madlibs...

The reason we were going to Gyeonju is because it was the capitol of Korea hundreds of years ago when it was a Buddhist nation. There is a rich history there.

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyeongju

We went to a few sites and did the tourist thing. It was a nice change to get out of the big city and see some grass and trees, but we soon found out that we missed how easy it was to eat, drink and get around in Seoul. We had long waits for buses and quite a hard time finding a single hof to sit and relax over a beer.

We stayed at Hotel Hyundai. It was the nice, but far from the dozens of digs the family has put me up in over the years. It did have a bathtub (which is rare in Korea) and for some reason we had two beds. So, we did the only thing we could in the room...






We ate an over priced dinner and listened to an awful Russian duo sing mediocre English songs to the whole restaurant. It was so bad. We had a great time with each other though.

We hopped on a bus for Busan and were there in no time! It was nice to smell the ocean air and see the occasional palm tree. The beach was small, but it was good enough.





고 was so cute it the water!!!

We stayed in a hotel that was not as luxurious as we first thought when we paid for it. During the day it was tolerable, but once night came, well...




A little creepy, huh?

The beach was fun at night too!!






So, we made the most of our time off and I got to share new parts of the country with the girl I love so much! She is so amazing!