Busan Holiday Part Two (The Sun, The Sea, and The Beer)

We awoke on our second day to the same intense heat and clear blue skies that had been present since our arrival. As everyone knows, such weather is sure to activate the "beer trigger" within you, and send you scurrying in the direction of the nearest beer garden. Or at least to a park via the local off-license. Classy.

Luckily for us, our plan for the entire day was simply to load up on beverages and set up camp on the famous Haeundae beach. We went for lunch at a franchised Korean place that we love, only to have our Korean menus switched for one with English translations. We feigned offence and switched back to the original one. Obviously, we would never really be offended by that, certainly not in a tourist spot like Haeundae, and also knowing of so many foreigners who just ignorantly never bother to learn any Korean. Also, if you went by the English version, 30 items were merely "Noodles", about 20 "Meat", and the rest simply "Rice Dish". A bit vague considering each one is vastly different!



This is obviously not my chosen attire for a day in the sun, it's a picture from the previous day, but it at least shows the spot on the beach we called home for the day. Due to excessive sun and alcohol, there are precious few beach photos from day two! Haeundae is famous mostly for being extremely over-crowded (some reports claim as many as 500,000 at peak-times, but that's surely madness), and being a surreal sea of brightly coloured umbrellas. It was, indeed, ridiculously crowded, but mostly down at the western end, far into the distance of this photo nearer the big hotels. The hotels without the dildo machines I imagine. This part of the beach was by total contradiction, sparsely populated and nice and quiet! I can only attribute that to the lack of parasols set up here, possibly due to a slight rocky ridge in the sea opposite, or the mass of construction backing the promenade. Construction = No Parasols = No Koreans.




(Sun, beer, and music.....Oh Yes!)

Of course, when relaxing on the beach, you would surely not be positioned with your back to the sea, so a little construction behind you was not going to ruin the fun. Anyway, it was silent construction. Before embarking upon our beach booze-a-thon, we had scoffed many times at Koreans coming to the beach to sit entirely in the shade of an umbrella. What we found out, however, was that there was method in their madness. Namely, staying alive. As we sprawled onto our cheap mat, the only people around in the full death-ray of the sun, we chuckled about how hot the sand had been walking over here. These chuckles soon disappeared as every pore proceeded to squirt sweat, and within a minute I was sliding off of the mat due to the puddle under my back. Honestly, it was unbearable. After around the 5 minute mark, I sheepishly sloped off to rent a parasol for us after all. After that, we indulged in many rapidly warming beers, and surprisingly tasty "KGB" vodka/lemon concoctions.



Ah the worldwide crap game of throwing darts at balloons in in the hope of securing one of many crap prizes. In this case I managed a poor 3 out of 5, which meant I had managed to win my sweetheart a grand prize. Yes, while other couples strolled down the promenade, the man carrying his personalised darts, the woman a stupidly oversized cuddly toy, Lynne proudly held the miniature fake Burberry teddy bear key ring I had won her.



As someone pathetically unable to drive, I can't really pass comment on this picture. But, the word on the street was that there are substantially less road traffic accidents in Busan than anywhere else in the world.


We stayed on the beach until the sun went down, and then went off to meet our new Busan friend for a few drinks.

And that's about it, not much to tell really when you're lying on a beach drinking for about 8 hours. Except that it was obviously another great day! Stay tuned for Part 3 and the amazing "Seacocks"!