Busan Birthday!

Its that time of year again, for Monica to get way too excited about her birthday and bore people with telling them repeatedly that its her birthday! Anyway, so Garry had made lots of secret plans for a long weekend away (we had the Friday off to for Buddha’s birthday, thank Buddha) and had booked a car for rental and had planned to take me to the beautiful isle of Namhae on the southern coast. However, 3 days before we were due to leave he discovered that we needed international driving licences and that our European ones would just not do. Disaster. Poor Garry spent the next two days trying a million different options, including going to Ulleung-do (an island off the East Coast) but everything was all fully booked due to the long weekend.

So we decided to head for Busan, the second biggest city in South Korea, set on the south tip of the country and famed for its beautiful beaches and nightlife. We booked a hotel and caught the bus after school on the Thursday night. It also happened that our crew (Corey, Paul, Adalet, Kate and Matt) were also spending the weekend in Busan so we knew we would have a great time both doing our own thing and going out with friends.

We arrived late on the Thursday night (about 11.30pm) and so after a few beers we went to bed.

An Asahi in bed, now thats the life for me.

The Friday arrived with glorious sunshine and my first birthday pressie from Garry - he had 3 presents, one of which to be gifted to me each day. We decided to head to Haeundae Beach, Busan’s most famous beach and then make plans from there. We got a smoothie from Smoothie King and munched on toasted bagels and cream cheese. The beach is well known for foreigners and it was teeming with people in bikinis, drinking beer and playing volleyball. We decided to take a boat ride to some near islands which was good except the really loud Korean music that was played throughout the journey.

The first of my three presents.

Sun and Fun at Haeundae Beach.

Smoothie King breakfast (blueberry for Garry and strawberry for me).

Boats at the harbour.

Well, another cute Korean chiddler on the boat journey (she even had mini Converse on).

Some islands we saw on our boat journey.

Lighthouse Island in Haeundae harbour.

My hand and the city skyline from the boat.

Haeundae Beach boardwalk.

Strutting on the boardwalk.

After this, it being Buddha’s birthday and all, we went to Yonggungsa Temple which is a beautiful temple situated on the rocks next to the sea about 30mins outside Haeundae. When we go there it was really busy and filled with a million different lanterns of varying shades and styles. At the top was a really tall golden Buddha statue which people were praying beneath. We were really tempted to try some temple food but the queue was huge so we got some ice cream and a beer and sat on the rocks opposite the temple in the sunshine. Despite there being hundreds of people visiting the temple, it was really peaceful and relaxing and set in such an amazing place. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is a bit jaded by all the other temples in Korea which can be very similar.

Temple entrance.

Stone Buddhist carvings on the way in that people had balanced lots of coins on.

The start of the many lanterns.

Pagoda at the temple.

Rubbing Buddha's chunky little belly for luck.

Throwing coins into the fountain and making wishes.

Two fat golden pigs that are deemed lucky in Buddhist culture.

Little mini buddhas everywhere.

Some lanterns for Buddha's Birthday.

Golden Buddha.

So many lanterns, such little time.

Buddhist inscription.

View down over the temple with the lanterns.

Another Buddha on the rocks outside the temple.

Me and some lanterns.

The temple on the rocks.

In the Mexican restaurant, you could write a note and tape it to the wall. This was ours as we couldn't find any other Scottish ones and it says happy birthday to me!

We decided to head back to Haeundae and have a few more beers before searching out an infamous little Mexican place near the beach that is renowned for its authenticity. After a bit of searching we found it and it was pretty good (apart from the olives in the fajitas - really?). Tummies filled, we got the underground back to the hotel and got ready for our party night out with the crew.

Now, as with previous nights out with the usual suspects, it always degenerates into a soju fueled noraebang session and tonight was no exception! Few of us have any memory of the later parts of the evening but Adalet and her trusty camera tell a fine story. Lets just say we got really drunk, staggered about town, sang in a really grubby noraebang and fell homewards about 5am. And yes, Garry did fall asleep while we were signing. Poor Matt had been so drunk by midnight that he had taken himself off home.

The following day is lost in space and time due to the soju hangover. We slept til 3 pm, Garry had fun with the bidet (he laughed a lot) and eventually we got up and showered had pizza and watched ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ (luckily not in 3D though as I don’t think I could have coped). It was a wet and rainy day so we felt justified in our laziness.

On the Sunday, my actual birthday, it was pouring down with rain! We went for a wander around the shops and I treated myself to some Accessorize delights and a new ring. We met up with the crew for an Italian buffet lunch which was fab and Garry surprised me with a Haagen Daz ice-cream birthday cake - it was SO good.

My beautiful birthday cake!

I had to put this up just for the comedy value of both our faces.

Yum yum yum, what a great birthday!

I had a great birthday weekend, although it was a time when I missed home more than usual and it was really nice to Skype chat with all my family on the Sunday night.

Thanks to all for the amazing birthday wishes and presents, you have made me a very happy lady x x x x x x x x