Busan (Part 1)

By:

Karen Conde

Published:

Countries

Demographics

Majors

,

Regions

I got to spend this past weekend in the beautiful city of Busan. It’s s located all the way on the southeastern shore of South Korea and about a four hour bus ride from Seoul.

Day 1

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The first stop in Busan was, Shinsaegae Centum City which holds the record for being the largest department store in the world. Since, South Korea has a limited space for buildings everything is built upwards and this mall has 9 floors. It has hundreds of stores, a skating rink, a golf range, a spa, and the top 3 floors also have a movie theater on them.

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My favorite part is that one of the theater rooms come equipped with Tempurpedic beds where you can order a fancy dinner and watch a movie with your date. Why isn’t every movie theater like this already?

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The second stop was Gwangalli Beach. Busan has so many beaches, but I decided to go to the one with the best night view. Gwangan Bridge lights up at nights and the views was just too beautiful, that I didn’t want to leave.

Thoughts/Feelings

Seeing the high rise apartments and great transportation system made me feel like I was still in Seoul, but it also felt like I was in a completely new country. There is a different dialect spoken in Busan, so there were a lot of things I couldn’t understand. The food was also very different. There is a rice cake soup that I love which is served in beef broth, but since seafood is so cheap in Busan, the one I ordered had seafood broth. It didn’t taste bad, but I’m not a big fan of seafood, so the flavor was a bit disappointing.

I loved going to the beach. I don’t live near one, so whenever I get the chance to go to one I always stay a couple of hours. The beach atmosphere was very different here though. Back in the States, people usually go to the beach in swimming suits, are ready for a tan, and swim freely in the water. In Busan, the beach was full of couples with selfie sticks and people under umbrellas or camping tents so they wouldn’t get a tan. Nobody in the water was wearing an actual swimsuit, but they were all wearing life vests since many Koreans don’t know how to swim.

It great to see and experience how average things we do, like shopping and going to the beach, are done so differently in another country!

I will update with part 2 of busan later.

 

 

 

Karen Conde

My name is Karen Conde and I'm a senior studying International Business and French at the University of Texas at Arlington. I spend most of my free time trying out new cooking recipes, walking my dog, and learning about the history of other countries. As a first generation college student and coming from a low-income family, nobody ever believed me when I said I would go study abroad. Well, I proved all those people wrong because this will be my second time studying abroad in South Korea! Next Fall I will be spending the last semester of my undergraduate career at Yonsei University, one of the most prestigious universities in South Korea. It is a goal of mine to work in Seoul someday and studying at Yonsei will get me two steps closer to that goal. I will be studying Korean and International business there, but I also plan to travel to historical sites, try all the delicious cuisine I missed out on last time, and share my experiences with everyone.