Busan, Finale

 

Morning.

For various reasons, there was a blur between the end of the night before and the morning after. I awoke after not more than a few minutes of dozing in time to see a man and a younger guy putting in the first of what would be hundreds and hundreds of umbrellas. In a few hours Haeundae Beach in Busan would be crawling; our bed would be pretty crowded.

Turns out, it wasn’t our bed. The older of the two umbrella Nazis began shouting at me that we were in his way. We wouldn’t have been in his way for another hour anyway but I smacked Larry in the back and we moved further up.

All things told, there are worse places to be exhausted and hung-over than Haeundae Beach. Granted, my mouth tasted like black death and my skin was covered in grime and sand from the past 6 or so hours- the stink of bad barbeque hung around me in a shroud of regret. Luckily we were right next to a giant bathtub.

The water reminded me of Hampton Beach and Plum Island in that it was freezing almost to the point of ankle numbness but not quite there so it was refreshing.

Here’s something you should know about Haeundae Beach: you can’t swim until 9am. Why? Don’t know, perhaps you die. We were throwing around a tiny football when a lifeguard came running up and told us to get out of the water. Fun time was over. We spent another 15 minutes in pathetic childlike desperation. The beach was empty save for a few runners, the umbrella Gestapo, and Larry and I as we sat at the edge of the water and tossed a miniature nerf-ish football back and forth like 5 year olds who would drown in more than 2 inches of water.

At some point we fell asleep long enough to fry and woke up to take a quick dip and clean off a fraction of the sand that would cling to us until we were back home.

Our motel cost 90,000W. Not a bad price considering where we were. It was more than we were hoping to pay but it was close to the beach and let us check in at 10am so we took it.

Love Motels. These classy establishments of the cheap and fornicating are one of the coolest things about Korea. I don’t remember our hotel name (I remember spending 30 seconds sounding out the Hangul til we figured out that it had something to do with BEACH) but it was surrounded by a wall and curtains so that those who walked in would not be visible to the outside, more decent world.

There is a certain shame in these places despite that they are literally EVERYWHERE. They are generally a hell of a lot cheaper than a tourist hotel (90,000W is actually pretty damn expensive for a love hotel) and can be a hell of a lot nicer. Sure, they might come with a few questionable extras- battery-operated devices, an extra channel or two, a few brochures for a little company- point is love motels make a lot of sense for the budget traveler. Though, according to Lonely Planet, there is a love motel in Busan at which one can rent a sex machine for an hour- that place might warrant the covert entrances.

We lucked out with a measly condom machine in our room. I have stayed in some pretty shady places in my life (cough, Buffalo, uncough) and this, well, it wasn’t one of them. There was a giant TV hanging on the wall, the bathroom was large with a deep-but-broken whirlpool tub. We had a nice view to the ocean above a handful of buildings. Our beds were firm and comfortable despite being covered in sand within seconds. All in all it was a fine place. I collapsed onto my bed and looked up at the thing that was probably going to kill us in the end.

It reminded me of an enormous wagon wheel. It was deep brown and was fixed to the ceiling. The color went with the white ceiling but the thing was monstrous. I had visions of my end- killed by a giant wagon wheel in Korea next to Larry in a room with a condom machine.

The other thing that made me nervous was our fire escape. We were on the ninth floor and our only way out in an emergency was coiled behind some glass next to the window. Our fire escape was a rope. I am scared of heights and if there was a fire I was supposed to throw this NYLON rope out of the window and shimmy down to the ground? C’mon Korea, at least spring for a rope ladder. They might as well have left a Super Soaker 80 in there with a note that said “…sorry”.

Lunch was a disappointment. We stopped at a sit-down Chinese joint and pointed to several menu items that we wanted included in our “lunch special” and got almost none of them. Instead we got a handful of tiny sample dishes of pretty crappy food. The rolls were pretty good though. We should have sgone for the shark fin or the bird’s nest soup, both of which were listed on the menu.

Haeundae Beach looks a lot more socially acceptable in the day. For one thing, there were no obviously drunk sailors or old men from the GEORGE WASHINGTON looking for meat in exchange for cigarettes. The place was swarming with people. It is still strange to see non-Asians with any regularity but a good percentage of people we passed by or pushed through were from the West. The beach was completely covered in umbrellas and people in skimpy bathing suits. Wait, that last part was a lie. It wasn’t until after Larry brought it up that I really noticed, but Koreans aren’t fans of the newest suits with the least amount of material. Nope, Koreans are fans of wearing a full set of clothes, sometimes even an over shirt on top of their T-shirt, when they go swimming. Whatever they were wearing, the place was hopping. Restaurants were overflowing and convenience store patios were full of people enjoying one or several early afternoon drinks.

We walked with the beach to our left on our way to some sort of shore pathway that brought us to an island and back. It was nice. The last time Larry and I had walked together was at the mountain fortress in Cheongju so this was a breeze. A wooden walkway sat atop rocky cliffs and jetties. Below were families drinking Soju and hunting for shellfish or something else. There was no sand for them to sit on, they just perched themselves amongst the rocks.

The path led to somewhere that was pretty unexpected. It led us first to a small lighthouse within sight of a giant bridge, but it then took us to a big modern looking building. It was the APEC building. Just recently there was an APEC meeting held in Vietnam. In 2005 APEC was in Busan, apparently in the building that stood in front of us.

It was a pretty cool place if a little bit dry. It was preserved so that we might feel like we were present at the time. We saw replicas of the meals they ate (plastic kimchi, anyone?) and saw their huge round table and seats labeled with the country of the representative who sat in it. Outside the meeting room we got to see the chairs they sat on as they looked out over the water towards the bridge. Mind you, we weren’t allowed to sit in them. They looked comfortable.



I was looking forward to dinner. Earlier in the day we had walked past a place called Fuzzy Navel. It appeared to be a bar that was packed beyond capacity but I knew (from being pathetic and googling “burritos” and “Busan”) that they allegedly served half decent Mexican food.

We found a spot on the patio and watched as a woman with two yippy but totally obedient dogs walked around. People sat in a tent next to us as a man read their palms and lightning tore the sky off in the distance. We ordered our food and sipped our drinks as we waited. The waiter brought out drinks to us and I, for one, realized that a “lime tap cocktail” was in no way a margarita. It was some dull beer that was loaded with lime flavoring. If mine was bad I felt fortunate that I had not ordered Larry’s Kahlua version.

Finally our food came. Words can’t describe how excited I was. I dug into my beef burrito. It consisted of about a pound of lettuce, refried beans, rice (according to the menu, it wasn’t on my burrito), a few burnt shreds of beef, fake cheese, and sour cream. If I were at home I would have been pissed, but I am not. I was eating genuine sour cream and what was once beef.  All was right with the world.

Larry managed to order the worst burrito on earth. I finished it when he couldn’t eat any more and it consisted of fake cheese and hardening refried-beans. I lucked out on the meal.

Later, we walked for a time with the beach to our right. We passed a K-Pop concert with 8,000W beers, a mural and about a thousand people at a hundred restaurants. We walked until the bustle of the strip gave way to the port. Fishing boats bobbed in a marina as open air shops cleaned their fish tanks. The night darkened with the lack of florescent lighting and the people became less tourist oriented. We walked through a narrow street and finally came to the end of the way and turned around. On a flat spot on the edge of the jagged rocks before the sea sat a family eating a twilight picnic. On our way back we passed small family fish shops where ladies cleaned or cooked their dinner which was presumably very fresh seafood.

Our Busan experience ended with us sitting atop a lifeguard chair drinking a beer while watching the sea as Koreans laughed and drank soju next to us.

At least, that’s how I would like to think it ended. It actually ended with a lifeguard walking up to us and blowing his whistle so that we would get down. “Damn waygooks,” he probably thought. We then went back to the love motel and watched Independence Day and The Ruins and had one last sip of Mongolian vodka. Before we left I ate an authentic bacon-double-cheeseburger from Burgerking and all was right with the world.  Not a bad weekend.

 
What I ate today: jjajangmyeon (noodles with black bean sauce) and fried chicken.