I am already extremely fortunate to have this experience of being in Japan and getting to experience Japan; however, I became beyond lucky when I realized that I had a friend living in Korea. Busan is only a 3 hour ferry boat ride from Fukouka and Fukouka turns out to be the midway spot between Iwakuni and Sasebo and where I switch trains when I am going beyond the too; the train station is actually called Hakata. So on my way back from 2 weeks in Sasebo I was able to hop on over to Busan.
My friend Ryan and his (extremely sweet and awesome) girlfriend Holly moved to Korea 3 years ago to teach English and now run a private academy on an island called Geoje; which is about an hour and ten minute ferry ride to Busan. I am actually friends with Ryan from the lake so I have known him forever. I was so looking forward to this weekend because not only was I having expat expertise to show me around but I was also going to get the chance to hang out with friends!!!!!!!! I am loving my job in Japan and have made some great friends with my coworkers but it is hard to meet people here because people usually have their own families if they work on base and I am also bouncing around between places so I am ever around consistently. Also, I have stated that this is the first summer since I have been born that I will not be at the lake so it was unbelievably fantastic to be able to hangout with a “lake kid” even though I wasn’t there.
As I was getting ready to get on the ferry, after going through passport control seriously it is a good thing that I remembered my passport at last minute, I saw a ferry sign for Busan and one for Pusan. I knew before this that Busan and Pusan are actually the same city but I had a slight freakout because I had a traumatic experience when I was living in Belgium and went to Italy to meet people and my train was super late so they didn’t know when to come to meet me and I didn’t know where they were staying and this was really before cell phones were popular (o how far we have come). So after 2 ½ hours in the train station one of my friends just happened to stop to see if my train was there and let me tell you I was jumping up and down with joy. That experience has forever scarred me and I started to irrationally worry that I was going to the wrong city. Therefore, once I got through customs I was so beyond thrilled to see Ryan standing there with a sign with my name on it; there were 4 other Westerners on the boat so of course I needed a sign!
A little dinner party trivia: Pusan became Busan in 2000 when Korea adopted the Revised Romanization of Korea, it limits the language to just the English alphabet.
I had an amazing weekend in Korea; Holly and Ryan definitely know how to make people feel welcome and how to show them a good time. As soon as we all met up we went to the hotel so I could drop off my stuff. Then we headed out to dinner and drinks and had some amazing thai wraps and some interesting cold noddle soup. In Japan there are delicious restuarants (and a type of food) called yakiniku, which is basically grilled meat that you can grill at your table. I love yakiniku but it was kind of weird to see it everywhere: indoors/outdoors, little mom and pop restaurants.
When I was in Korea I kept using my 6 words of Japanese. It kept frustrating me that "my" Japanese were the first words that kept popping out of my mouth. Seriously, who knew I was so fluent (I am currently dying of laughter right now) no but for real it is funny how quickly one picks up the simple words "thank you" and "excuse me" how they become second nature. I think it was a good reminder because I really don't think the people on the metro are going to respond to sumimasen (excuse me) when I get back home.
Here are some pics from our boat ride around Pusan!
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