Busan

Today I went to Busan with 2 friends, Katie and Paul. We took the train from Ulsan and we were there in less than an hour. Busan is a really big city - they have the mountains and the ocean, the world's largest department store (which I will visit next time), an aquarium, Costco, Caribou, and TONS of other stuff. The first thing we did was go to the ocean. It was kind of cloudy and cold, but I still took off my shoes and walked around in the sand. I LOVED it! I'm going to have so much fun there in the summer.

Next we went to the aquarium. It's right on the beach. It looks small from the outside, but there were 3 floors underground. Asia has different animals than North America, obviously, so I saw some new creatures today. There was this lady with a microphone talking in front of a shark tank, and then a diver got in the tank, so we assumed they were going to feed the fish. Makes sense right? Wrong. They were doing some weird underwater magic show that was not as cool as watching sharks eat.

After the aquarium we wandered around for a little while, just to see what there was. There was a lot. We found a pub we wanted to eat at because they served burgers. So went all the way up to the 14th floor, and it was closed. Instead we found T.G.I.Fridays and got burgers there. They were HUUUUGE!

Guess what I found outside Fridays? Caribou! My boss told me there was one in Korea, and I didn't believe him. I was wrong. I got a latte, and it was almost the same as America. I didn't love paying full price though...

Next it was time to find Costco. We got in a cab and said "Costco" and the driver seemed to understand. I was sitting in the front seat, and all the sudden he called someone on his cell phone (not unusual) and handed the phone to me (very unusual). The guy had called his son, who spoke English, because he had no idea where we wanted to go and he needed a translator. Let me just tell you that the word "costco" is the same in both languages. We found lots of familiar food in Costco, and we were doing just fine until we had to pay. There was confusion with the Costco card, and with our debit cards - we were those annoying foreigners who are doing things wrong but don't know exactly what the problem is...we eventually figured it out and left with our groceries. Then we wandered around a little more and got back on the train to come home to Ulsan. It was a really full, busy, fun day!