Summer vacation!

Posted on August 24, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

I have been looking forward to summer vacation for MONTHS! JuHye and I booked a trip to the Philippines back in early May. We have been waiting so long to go that it almost feels unreal that it’s finally here!

We met up on Tuesday evening in front of Paris Baguette to take the bus to the airport. The weather was rainy and gross so we were both excited to get out of Korea for a while.

The four hour flight to Cebu was very smooth. We had seats in the exit row and that seemed great in theory, but the leg room wasn’t enough to make up for the fact that our seats didn’t recline. I can’t complain though. One of my favorite parts about the plane ride was that everything was in English! It’s amazing the great feeling you can get from something that simple. After being in Korea for 6 months, it was wonderful to be around other English speaking foreigners.

We got into Cebu around midnight and then we had to go through customs. The line was long, but the process was pretty painless. We walked out of the airport to find a taxi to the hotel when I heard JuHye say, “That’s my name!” She kept walking and I was looking around to see what she was talking about when I saw a man holding a sign that said “JuHye Lee.” Upon further inspection, I noticed that the sign said the name of the hotel we had booked for the night. I said, “JuHye, that IS your name!” We had a free hotel shuttle service and we didn’t even know. It was great.

The hotel we stayed at on Tuesday night wasn’t great. We booked something cheap and close to the airport because we knew that our flight didn’t get until late so we wanted to save some money. We slept with the window open and we woke up with the roosters. They have been crowing ever since. The room came with free breakfast, which was nice. The menu was pretty hilarious. It had breakfasts to suit every taste. There was the “Kim” that was a Korean style breakfast that included panjeon (seafood pancake) and rice. JuHye had the Lulu that was a pancake and fruit. I had the Diego, which was an omelet with salsa. There was also the “Joe” that had steak, gravy and french fries. Too funny.

I am posting this from my phone at the restaurant at the hotel we are staying at. I’m not sure if the next hotel will have wifi so this may be the last post for a while.

M.I.A.

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

After summer camp, I had two days of “desk warming” and then I was off the rest of the week.

I have been pretty busy exploring and relaxing so I haven’t done any blogging.

This week I’m back to summer camp. I’ll try to post more very soon. Hang in there. 🙂

Urban Hike

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Meagan & Dave | HappilyEverExpat.com

I recently ran across a Busan etour website and found my neighborhood and discovered all sorts of things that I never knew existed. On Sunday I decided to set out alone to explore my area.

Dongnae Station is in the middle of the map. I live near Minam Station (left of Dongnae), which is about a 15 minute walk from Dongnae Station. I make this walk all of the time. If you look at the map, you can see that there are all sorts of landmarks in the area behind Dongnae Station so I decided to go exploring and see if I could find any of the things listed on the map.

I was basically wandering aimlessly. I just started walking in what I thought might be the general direction of things and hoped eventually I might run into something on the map. The first thing I came across wasn’t actually on the map.

The cool thing about this place was that it was tucked away in the middle of an outdoor market that I just happened to decide to walk through.

Next, I saw something that looked interesting so I walked up the winding driveway and it happened to lead to a Buddhist temple. The temple was quite busy. I saw many people heading up the stairs and there were women out front greeting people as they entered. They bowed to me when I walked up so I said, “annyeong haseyo” (hello) and they all giggled. They were super cute so I decided to try to ask them directions to one of the places on the map. I showed them the map on my iPhone and they all discussed things amongst themselves before they called over another woman who spoke a bit of English. That woman asked me where I was trying to go and then walked me back down the winding driveway so she could give me better directions. Her directions weren’t extremely clear so I ended up getting a bit lost.

I was trying to find Beokcheondong Gobungun Ancient Tombs. The woman told me that I should walk past these apartments so that’s what I did. If you click on the picture, you can see that the tombs are in the background, but there’s just no way to get to them from where I was. I kept walking up and behind this area, but it came to a dead end. It was so frustrating because I could see the tombs and the museum… I was walking all around them… but I just couldn’t figure out how to get to them.

So I went back and decided to keep walking even farther past the apartments on the main street. It worked out for the best because I came across some other nice finds, including a Confucian school and this man, decked out in full hiking gear, that I though truly represented my “Urban Hike” theme.

I had been walking for a few hours at this point and I was beginning to get exhausted, but I was determined to find the tombs before heading back home. I followed the road and took the first right at the next major intersection and I just kept walking…

I was so close to quitting, but I didn’t. I pushed through and I’m so glad I did because after the bend in the road, I finally found what it was I was looking for (and more)!

First I walked up the trail…