5/1

Remember when Korea was winning every "battle" of tourism? Well the winning streak continues. On May first we all had the day off because of Korea's new Labor Day for contract workers. Not wanting to sit around Ulsan on a day off Loree, Meredith, and I decided to take a bus into Busan for another day of site seeing. Chris met up with us because he also had the day off but he got in later so we had an hour or so to kill before meeting up with him. We decided to get on a bus and visit this "moon road" that is suppose to give couples a good future if they walk it during a full moon. We read the directions a few times before getting on the bus but we still missed our stop and ended up riding the bus to the end of the line - a first for all of us. We all got off the bus laughing at ourselves and waited for the next bus to come. The bus driver gave us a discount because I think he knew we were lost. With our very limited Korean skills Loree and Meredith read the bus line and discovered where we were suppose to get off. Once we were off the bus we looked for the sign pointing to the road (according to the website there should have been a sign) but we didn't see one so we decided to do the next best thing - ask jr high students where to go. They laughed and spoke in Korean for about three minutes before one student bravely said: go straight and turn right. Well we did that and still didn't see the road. Finally we gave up on the directions and got into a taxi, which turned around and drove us up a hill into a beautiful treed area with small shops. Chris ended up beating us there! We all laughed and walked around. That hill overlooked the ocean and the wooded trail had a Minnesota cross country feel. If I had been placed in that area, I don't know if I would ever want to leave. It was so peaceful. It was the perfect mix of woods and ocean. 

After that we decided to go to this temple along the ocean and not trusting our skills at directions we got into a taxi and said where we wanted to go. Taxis are always tricky because the slightest difference in pronunciation can be the difference between success and failure. We thought we had said it right and he seemed to understand. But then he kept driving and I felt like we were going in the wrong direction. The view was great and he took us over this beautiful bridge and we all got our cameras out and started to take pictures. It wasn't until we saw Busan Station that we started to question this taxi trip. He was certainly taking the long way. Meredith pulled up on her phone where we wanted to go on google maps and we were most deferentially going the wrong way. He ended up dropping us off at Busan Tower, which in Korean the parks name sounds exactly like the water temples name (well at least it does to me).  We decided to make the most out of it and we walked around and took pictures. 

Not wanting to let Korea kill our plans we got in another taxi (this time we showed on our phone where we wanted to go) and we sat in rush hour. The taxi driver tried to explain to us in Korean about the traffic and we just all nodded and said "naaaee" (yes). After what felt like an hour in traffic we got to the water temple. It was breath-taking to see such an old building by the sea. There were lanterns everywhere in preparation for Buddhas birthday. 

We left Busan very tired and our pocket change distributed to various taxi drivers. 

You win again Korea but it was still a great trip. 

Bless friends.