Trip to Busan

So it's been a week since I updated and that is basically because not much happens here during the week.  Jinju is a nice little conservative town in which people go out on the weekends and keep to smaller things during the week.  This is mostly because people work until 9-10pm so no one does anything afterwards.  So there wasn't much to write about outside of the few baseball moves made (maybe more on that later).

The week though was highlighted by the first trip outside Jinju to the second largest city in the country, Busan (or Pusan).  Busan is a city that seems to be laid out through the mountains and lays upon the Pacific ocean at the Southern part of the peninsula.  It is only an hour and a half by bus to get there but then another 45 mins-1 hour to get to the part of the city we stayed at by subway.  Any city with a subway is very homely.  There are actually 13 year olds working in the subway basically to help clueless foreigners find their way around.  It's very helpful but odd at first when a little Korean comes up to you giving you directions on what to do and then they dissapear.

The purpose of the trip was very simple.  There were 8 of us and basically it is an opportunity to get out of Jinju to a bigger city, eat some western food and take a trip to the casino.  The casino is weird since Koreans aren't allowed into it.  It's basically a place for western teachers living in Korea and older Japanese businessmen to use while in the city.  There are two roulette tables, one non-$100 blackjack table, Caribbean poker, what seemed to be 600 baccarat tables (no idea how to play that) and a handful of slots.  Basically it is a smaller Atlantic City without the fat people on motor scooters.

Week 4 is starting and it's amazing how you become appreciative of the little things the more you don't have them.  For example I had a piece of bacon at breakfast yesterday and it was absolutely perfect.  I didn't do much exploring around the city and stuck to the trip and one small area that other foreigners hang out at but there will be more trips and as the weather gets nicer, the beach area becomes good places to be with lot of beach bars, etc.

This was the coffee shop by the hotel.  If you can't see the mascot, it is an older black guy (looks eerily similar to Cee-Lo) dressed up like a recently emancipated slave doing a jig with his coffee.  It looked incredibly racist and politically incorrect but that just means I had to take a picture and document it.

Yes I know it's a picture of a urinal.  But if you see, there are ice cubes at the bottom of it.  I can't answer you why this is and no one else I was with seemed to know either.  But I found it so odd that water and drinks at restaurants don't come with ice but the urinals can be packed with them.  Just another quirk of Korea that us westerners don't understand.

This is upon entry to the casino (which ironically, we didn't see until we were leaving).  Now I don't know if it means no drunks allowed or they meant to say no alcoholic drinks are allowed in but obviously there are no drunks allowed.  Again, I don't know if this means people currently drunk, people who are just naturally alcoholics or any other possible option.  

Other notes:

• I was given my first exposure to the Korean game baduk this weekend.  Basically it is a game involving black and white stones that seems like it makes no sense at first but it actually is a very strategic game that involves a lot of thinking.  It is a lot harder than it looks.  The game is very popular here as it has been in the school books I have been teaching out of so even littler kids are exposed to it.  But I played with a friend on the bus ride back from Busan and an older lady was watching our game seeming very interested in jumping in.  I think you haven't properly been creeped out until a Korean elder watches your every move on a bus

• At certain hours of the day, red lights seem to be optional.  If there is no one crossing the street (and even sometimes, if they are) and there is no cars coming from the other direction, then the cars will go through the red light like nothing is wrong.  I actually don't mind this idea since the lights are SO long here that they can easily save 5 minutes by going through the light when no one is there and continue on their journey

• What came over the Red Sox?  They are easily the best team in the league right now and since Cliff Lee hasn't made a decision yet.  The Yanks are clearly in trouble if they don't sign him.  A rotation of CC, Hughes, a questionable Burnett and then two question marks (one if Pettitte doesn't come back) isn't competitive with the Sox and will be awfully troubling.  I won't go more in-depth than that except that, as of now, without Cliff Lee, it's not even close.  At least my co-worker who was born and lived in the U.S. for a few years summed it up perfectly when she was talking about her college experience in Boston..."Boston sucks."  See, even Koreans know that.  No wonder why they rank higher than us in all school subjects internationally

That's about all for now.  I'll come back sometime during the week or next weekend with another update.  I start three new classes this week so I have less free time at work which is good.  So enjoy the next few days.