My First Week in Seoul

I first landed in Seoul 4 weeks ago Thursday, when I arrived at the airport I couldn't read a thing or understand what anyone was saying.  I was playing a game of charades with everyone there trying to find my way to the bus I needed to take to get to my friends place.

My friend took me out for some Korean BBQ and Soju, which is like Vodka but much strong and it's about a dollar a bottle at the convenience store.  We walked the streets and they were filled with colourful lights, people drinking Soju outside of the convenience store on plastic patio furniture and endless food vendors selling chicken skewers, soups, fried seafood, squid, dok boki (thick rice noodles in a spicy spaghettios like sauce) and pig intestine.

From Friday to Sunday I decided to make a trip to Busan, which is South of Seoul.  A close friend of mine who has been living in Korea for almost 4 years lives here so I went to spend some time with her and her friends for the weekend.  We went to popular beach called Haeundae beach.  This beach is in the Guiness Book of Records for the highest world record of umbrellas on a beach.  The beach is filled with Koreans covered in sun screen (I'm talking about a thick film of white cream covering themselves) because they are so scared of getting tanned for some reason.  Did I mention that the females walk around in heels at the beach?  Also, you can't swim past water beyond your waist level or else you get a Life Guard blowing a whistle in your face.  They are so paranoid about people drowning at the beach that they keep you from going any further than water past your waist.

The night life in Busan is beautiful, most people are sitting along the beach eating food they've purchased from the food vendor or just pre-drinking the $1.00 Soju purchased from a near by convenience store like we did.  No matter how late it is, the streets are always filled with people just walking around (including families with their kids!).

I really enjoyed my stay in Busan, it's very relaxing and the foreigners that choose to got there to teach are pretty relaxed.  If I ended up staying another year in Korea, I would definitely live in Busan.