The transition from a pleasant tail end of Summer melding into a comfortable beginning of Autumn this year was cut short roughly two weeks ago when, as far as I’m concerned, Winter took it’s reign.  Since then we’ve had temperature highs of around 10ºC (50ºF) whilst mostly it’s actually been a few degrees lower and certainly felt as much.

Kerosene heater for classrooms.

Southern Japan offers the kind of Winter weather for which the bitter cold and snowdrifts of Minnesota did not prepare me, since it constantly permeates one’s life when one works at schools in this country. Without using a terribly inefficient electric heater like the one in my air conditioner, the entirety of my home outside of the small square taken up by my kotatsu table would be the same temperature as it is outside thanks to the lack of insulation.

No matter that this is my second year here, it’s perpetually a rude shock and a struggle to keep warm that leaves me feeling rather sympathetic to the students in their uniforms.  Their insane character building experience won’t stop me from wearing a heavy coat and sometimes my “hobo-style” cutoff gloves to class.

The truth is, sometimes a lucky day is one where I’m at a school where the staff room is properly heated and classes number in the few.  Despite the boredom of sitting in the staff room, classes do require one to venture out into the freezing hallways and classrooms.

My schools have just begun to use their big and very aged looking kerosene heaters usually placed in the rear of the classroom, though most wait until well into December to distribute them.  They don’t do much for those of us at the front, but it’s better than nothing!

This year I’ve built a new tradition, which came about after half a day of just not being able to get warm despite wearing long underwear and layers: If the staff room doesn’t properly defrost me, in my free periods I venture over to the school gymnasium and run twelve laps or so around the interior.  It’s nice to get the little bit of exercise this represents anyway, and it really does warm up the body core, however odd it might look to the rest of the school’s inhabitants.

One day I asked one of the two Christian Japanese people I know (and they’re married) who is an assistant teacher at one of my junior high schools how to say “go for a run” in Japanese.  There is indeed an expression for taking a walk or a stroll 散歩する (さんぽする　sanpo suru) but there doesn’t seem to be an equivalent expression for taking a jog with one’s portable music player.  The best she could come up with is 並走する（へいそうする　heisou suru) which essentially means “to line up and run” implying that others were involved.

Oh Japan, so group-centric.

For you today I have one shot from the island and two from off it, thanks to not-so Mid-Year Conference.

Hello Kitty makes an appearance at a local Maruwa, but on a product you really wouldn’t think is interesting enough.

Kitty-chan branded milk in a local convenience store.

A South African comes your way and “lo’ and behold” you find yourself slapped in the proverbial face with reminders of it all over!

South Africa, found at the unlikelist of places: A bar-restaurant in Nagasaki my iPhone brought us to.

During conference, I was happily surprised to find this deliciousness available practically all day all around the city.

Oden, a popular winter cuisine, available for takeaway at convenience stores.

Trolls: They're larger and still outdated in Japan.

Every year, junior high schools and senior high schools in Japan host a few major events for study, for fun, for character-building, and to invite people who are usually too busy working to come anyway, their families, and one of these is the Culture Festival.

Tsushima High School hosted its culture festival on a Sunday, so Rose and I were able to go check it out, thus we were one epic hill walk away from interest and intrigue.

School culture festivals are comprised primarily of three things:

1. Classrooms decorated on certain themes, arts, areas of study, or people.
2. Food booths with tasty things for sale.
3. Dance and music performances.

Upon arrival and locating Duncan, the new high school ALT paid to “work” by being in attendance for the day plus a day off for the sacrifice of a Sunday, the three of us partook in some traditional tea ceremony in the school courtyard. That came free with a rather ceremoniously served pastry and vessel with a modest amount of delicious matcha by little women in kimono.

First one is served the pastry, then the creamy green tea.

Normally tea ceremony takes place in a very traditional tatami house, in a room that one crawls in to not only out of ceremony but because the entryway is a square hole in a wall. However, the high school naturally doesn’t have its own tea house.

The classrooms had a wide range of themes.  One had cartoon renditions of all of the staff drawn by the students. Another was a Halloween-themed vampire’s crypt, another profiled some foreign countries, a science room provided attendees the opportunity to extract genetic material from broccoli, and yet another had a large map of the island on the floor marked with real seashells.  Even cooler in the latter room was the arrangement of rubbish collected from beaches around the island, in a sort of respect-the-Earth message way.

Mountains marked by seashells.

Another room featured large models of Anpanman and his rival, Baikinman.

Incredibly artwork by a Japanese high school student.

Sadly Rose and I arrived after the Culture Festival Marketplace closed, so we missed out on some tasty Japanese foods, which apparently also sold out rather rapidly.  Still, a former student of mine and one of the many I miss handed me a free little bag of sugar cookies that tasted like home.

Since the high school is one of three on the island, it’s student population is large enough (or at least was at one time) to warrant a rather large gymnasium.  That building was chock full of stairs, mostly filled with students watching the dance performances going on when we moseyed on over to there.

Later, the band came on and performed a medley of songs from various Studio Ghibli films, the famous Japanese animation studio that produced Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and several others lesser known in foreign countries.

Word is in that Swine Flu has finally hit the island, and in fact someone in the second grade of the elementary school at which I am teaching two days this week contracted the disease.  Twenty students are or have gone absent today, 13 from fever or influenza and 7 for various reasons.  The whole second grade, in an effort to curb the spread, are on holiday from tomorrow until Friday.

As a precaution, I’m wearing a sanitary mask provided by the school nurse, along with a number of other teachers.  During my first class I think I suffered a mosquito bite, though, so I’m a little worried I might catch it from that.  It wouldn’t bother me so much to take the sick leave, but I certainly would rather be healthy at work.

The news media in Japan have been repeatedly sensationalist, or have nothing better to report, regarding H1N1.  For a while updates seemed to be front page news almost every day, or so I hear.  Back when it first started spreading through Mexico and the States, people taking trips to infected nations were required to go through quarantine and report back twice a day to local health officials, as the nearest other ALT experienced, while interestingly enough coming back from Southeast Asia I didn’t.

For a country that doesn’t properly heat its schools during the winter and seems to treat resulting cold and flu cases as immune system- and character-building, it’s strange to see them freak out to this extent for a new but easily cured infection. Clearly it has proper medical care to facilitate it.

This year, thanks to the influence and involvement of the two new southern ALTs on the island, my life has been dramatically different, mostly in good ways.

The three southern males have a beach bonfire.

Their strikingly adventurous nature has led me to do some light cliff-like jumping paired with more frequent visits to the beach, join the indoor football (soccer) group that practices and scrimmages once a week, and even give karate a try.  And now, we seem to be building a habit of partying the weekend away together.

At the cost of bad skin for a week, I won all three rounds of Texas Hold ‘Em poker last weekend. This, dear readers, is in stark contrast to my history with the game.

Some have a habit of going all in somewhat prematurely.

Sadly, my luck and ability to strike fear in the hearts of the other parties seems to have faded, for this weekend’s two poker sessions left me with no wins.  Two of the northerners joined us and we all crashed at Shane’s, playing two nights in a row because the first quickly devolved into a wrestling match that seemed by all accounts loud enough to wake the neighbours.

This and the male genitalia drawn on my face (as punishment for going to deep sleep a little too early in the morning) may perhaps explained by pent-up testosterone and consumption of a certain from of depressant. (Apparently, I’ve joined another fraternity.) All in good fun, t’was.

The five of us also took a nice hike of the most scenic and almost tallest mountain of the island, Mt. Shiratake, on the unexpectedly beautiful Saturday afternoon preceding our second night of gaming.  The wind strength did not prevent us from taking a rest and lunching on the peak, though it was indeed frightening to stand up for long.

The best view on Tsushima, on a hazy day.

As for indoor football (soccer), it is both a blast and a challenge. The group meets at a community centre gymnasium and we play on the space of a basketball court.  The game’s very twitchy nature, seemingly best suited for forwards, throws me off a bit and I would still say I prefer playing outdoor, which offers more variety and elevated kicks.  Still, it’s great fun, and a few of the locals are quite good.

The night I acquired Puma shoes specially designed for the sport to be light and have improved traction, not only did I seem to have unlimited energy, I also scored a pretty sweet goal and played decently for my very rusty ability.  I have since modified these shoes via permanent marker to change two of the three red stripes to black and the third to an edgy “grunge” dirty-red, partially because Duncan bought the same ones first. They definitely translate to fashion sneakers!

Futtosoru shoes, enhanced.

Special emphasis in Japan is put on having shoes exclusively for use in gymnasiums, which mean one wears a different pair for outdoor use and changes on arrival.  Yet at the same time, there’s a lot of hypocrisy involved when people take a break to go outside and don’t bother to change back into the outside shoes or at least take off the gym shoes. When we took breaks between scrimmages, for example, most of the guys did just this to go out and smoke or grab a vending machine drink.

One sees this at schools, too. Everyone has shoes exclusively for use in the school, and even a separate pair for use in the gymnasium.  Paths connecting buildings go outside and often intersect with areas that vehicles ride over or where people walk with outside shoes.

Karate was far from what I was expecting.  We started off with shadow-boxing, pairing up with a different person for a couple minutes and punching, kicking, or blocking in a sort of dance that left me embarrassed and completely confused.  The practice moved onto drills of punches and kicks that were pretty easy to follow.  From then on, the rest of the time we essentially just spent exercising.

Toughness training, as it has been referred to, involved letting people punch you in the abdomen ten times and doing the same to them.  Everyone moved into a big circle and went from one person to the next until everyone had punched everyone.  Then, we did the same thing except we jumped or just stomped on each others’ abdominal region. One of Duncan’s high school students is in the class, and has crazy, rock-hard abs to the extent that one could tell this just from stepping on them.

After the shocking smoke break in which most of the guys actually did smoke, we split into two teams for an exercise routine competition of push-ups.  For the second competition, we did push-ups and abdominal leg-arm raises. One by one everyone in the team would do as many reps as they could and then the next person in line traded off.  The losers were required to do rapid squats or push-ups for a few minutes, and sadly I was on that team both times, though in the competition there were some questionable head-bob push-ups.

I thoroughly enjoyed the single-leg go-up-on-your-toes calves exercise, for weighing not so much it didn’t create quite same burn as those emitting cries and grunts. We otherwise did a lot of crunches and push-ups.

Really, what I liked best about the class was the workout, though it was neat to watch some of the guys who really know what they’re doing spar for a few minutes at the end. I’ve just decided, however, that I won’t be continuing.

The trade-off to this dramatically different routine of late is that I’ve been really getting behind on my Japanese language studies and ignoring the side job.  On the weekends, too, I’ve been spending quite a lot of time with the guys and speaking English. Time to strike a balance.

Our exploration into Korean food began with Samgye-tang, or Ginseng Chicken Soup.  After our exhausted arrival following the very rocky jetfoil, we located a venue blurringly geared toward tourists, and this was at the top of the menu.  A whole chicken thigh came to be served in a little boiling pot with enoki mushrooms, short-grain white rice, a small amount of ramen noodles, and green onion. This was supplemented by a myriad of little plates holding side dishes like kimchi cabbage and daikon radish, a spicy soybean paste, plain daikon, and string vegetables.

First meal: Samgye-tang (Ginseng Chicken Soup)

One spoons the chicken, broth, and other ingredients into this dining bowl.

We just happened to stumble upon this rather traditional food the night we arrived, scouting around for a good place to eat around the fashion street of Gwangbok-ro. It played host to a few other foreigners, those around us most likely Japanese, as we weren’t the only ones with no clue at first about what to do with everything set in front of us.  The middle-aged server ladies came to help us out, and no, all those individual plates were for distinct sampling and not for putting in the soup.

As we left, a customer there on his own and Japanese by our guess was signalling frantically for water after he chomped on an entire spicy pepper.  They actually have spicy food in Korea!

One pre-dinner snack and another night’s dinner consisted of extremely cheap street food in the form of jiaozi, Korea’s version of gyoza, mochi and vegetables in a mildly spicy red sauce, and for dessert thick, fried pancakes stuffed with some powdery form of sugar and small nuts.  A particularly famous vendor of these hand-held pancakes constantly had a line of tourists throughout the day, and wasn’t even there through the night.

One of the street food vendors near Jalgachi Market.

Mochi and cabbage(?) in a mildly spicy red sauce.

Close-up of the jiaozi (gyoza) - Chinese dumplings.

A hedonic dessert of fried pancake with sugar.

Squid and more, from another street vendor.

Dried squid & compressed fish

Other street vendors had dried squid on display and flat, dried fish cakes the size of tortillas that you see above.

Another night we managed to find Korean yakiniku (grilled meat) at one of the places that our information booth guide circled for us, and the place wasn’t actually all that difficult to find – I’m just terrible with maps and needed to get used to the lay of the land first.  It’s on the alley across from the escalator up to the monument tourist trap park, which is set in the middle of the expensive shopping street.

Korean yakiniku (grilled meat) was quite different than Japanese yakiniku, and strikingly so in the fact that meat was less so the centre of the meal.  Again we had a large assortment of little plates with side dishes, some to be consumed in the same bite as the meat, which by itself lacked much flavour.

Duncan’s friend Cathy, a local teacher of English, met up with us and walked us through the dinner whilst the owner actually grilled the meat right in front of us.  The restaurant had floor seating on wood and tables with built-in grills, and we were seated between a group of Korean women and on the other side, two touristing Japanese women. When the time came, our personal cook proceeded to quite literally cut up the meat, with a new vocabulary term for me: meat scissors, which appear just the same as other kitchen scissors.

Korean yakiniku table grill

Side dishes and seasoning for the meat.

Pickled daikon radish and more side dishes.

Meat scissors, as the owner cooked for us!

Our modest amount of pork, plethora of side dishes and seasoning, and beer came to all of 30,000 KRW (US$25 or 2,282 yen) for the three of us.

One of the days we vowed to get lunch at the huge Jalgachi Fish Market, but it was to no avail.  We got lost in the midst of the tightly packed lanes of small fish vendors, selling schools upon schools of tasty looking swimmers, plus juicy octopi and other sea life.  Inside a warehouse building there were a bunch of tables and live fish to be cut up for sashimi or fried flavours, and this was to be our restaurant of choice, but it was incredibly overpriced.  For a fraction of the price just for sashimi and some side dishes, we could have gotten something probably more fresh on Tsushima – Who knows when the fish were actually brought there, even if they were still swimming around.

Octopus and fish at one of the many vendors at Jalgachi Fish Market

Schlepping the octopi.

A photo-oppy, friendly fish vendor.

So instead, we had a huge lunch of KFC — Korean Fried Chicken, that is — at a chain restaurant not far away from the market.  A huge dish of this chicken plus little mochi “dogs” sat between Duncan and I, and we weren’t even able to devour the whole thing between the two of us.  There were chopsticks and western utensils provided, but we were at odds to figure out what the etiquette was for consuming said dish, since most of it seemed to be wings. Attempts to use chopsticks failed, and I was the first to give in to chowing down ribs-style.

Hand-washing was certainly required afterward to remove all the stickiness, so we discovered the somewhat awkward washroom with no door or separation between the sink and urinal.  Luckily it wasn’t so busy.

For our breakfasts we stopped by the two cafés just outside our hotel: Holly’s and the one I can’t recall.  Holly’s had a very sterilised appearance that seemed out of place with the rest of the area, much like the frozen yogurt café in Ho Chi Minh City.  One of the days I still had leftover pastries from Tsushima so I subsided on those and a coffee, but the second day I had a lovely waffle with maple syrup that really hit the spot with an iced mocha.  Comparing the size and calories with the price, this was proportionally by far the most expensive meal at 7,000 KRW (US$8).

Breakfast waffle at Holly's.

Missing it on my island, I never give up a chance for Starbucks.

On the morning of our return, I was foolish enough to order an apple-cinnamon pretzel from the other café, thinking they’d have them for take-away. Instead, it took maybe over ten minutes to get the order, as it was freshly made, and it turned into a sticky and over-sugary mess as I walked with it to the subway station.  Avoid pretzel orders!

Another of my favourite Korean foods I didn’t try until after I returned.  For a souvenir my supervisor, who also visited Korea that weekend, got me a pack of dried seaweed — But no ordinary seaweed.  This stuff seems to have been fried, or is at least doused with oil, but more importantly seems to be lined with some form of spicy chili.  It’s actually one of the spiciest Southeast Asian foods I’ve had since for the most part the food I ate in Thailand, for one reason or another, wasn’t actually very hot.

Visualising our wonder and ignorance of things Korea, just upon arrival

Japanese came in rather handy at the Busan sea craft port’s tourist information booth, where within a matter of minutes Duncan and I were pointed to good places to eat and shop on a street we returned to a few times during our stay, and a sauna hotel where we overnighted for the whole trip.  The attendant gave us maps of the city in English, too.

I was a bit nervous about travelling without much of any plan at all, but once we got outside the port I felt much better: The streets looked just like Japan, as if we’d just stumbled into Fukuoka, except most of the signs were in Hangul instead of Japanese.  The streets even had the same yellow guide lines textured for the blind, and twenty-four hour convenience stores of local brands but much like 7-11, Family Mart, and Lawson.

Interestingly, we noticed that they drive on the right side of the road like the States.

A few blocks walk took us past Jungang-dong station and onto the expensive Gwangbok-ro shopping street, where we looked around for a place to get dinner.  It was around eight o’clock in the evening but most of the bright fashion shops were still open, and we noticed that they seem to stay open fairly late.  We looked around for a couple restaurants circled on our map by the port information booth lady but settled on a random, decent looking place that luckily served a rather traditional Korean menu, though expectedly for a higher price.

The subway system was super easy.

Afterward we went to find our jjimjilbang (sauna hotel) to stay for the night, so we hopped on the subway where I was shocked at not only how similar it was to the system in Japan but also about its user-friendliness.  At the very least the station names on all signs were in Korean, English, and Chinese, and the ticket system was a touchscreen that offered these languages and maybe more.

Unlike Japan there’s nobody watching the ticket gates, or so it seemed, but you insert your ticket to both enter and exit and the fare is determined by zone.  The subway lines in Busan don’t branch off to multiple destinations, and special music plays at the few intersection transfer stations, so it’s quite easy to get going in the proper direction. On the train-cars themselves, depending on the station announcements came in multiple languages as well.

Busan is definitely a mix of the first-world and third-world, which one can see in the large lower income housing districts in the distance at various parts of the city or notice otherwise, for example, in the walk from the nearest station down to the beach where our jjimjilbang was located. The lingering smell of sewer and the less pristine shops are quite characteristic of Southeast Asia.

Once one gets down to Gwangan Beach, however, immediately the scene becomes wealthy again with pricey cafés and beautiful neon lights beaming from the buildings and the massive Gwangan Bridge, decorating the night sky.

Our recently finished, towering hotel, which cost us just 10,000 won (758 yen, US$8) per night for the 24 hour sauna, glowed with wide neon lights on the exterior of each floor.

Gwangan Beach at night: "neon fireworks"

The new Hotel Aqua Palace.

Gwangan Bridge, much like the huge Rainbow Bridge in Tokyo.

Closeup of the prettiest night lights building on Gwangan Beach.

When people say touristing in South Korea is cheap, they aren’t kidding.

Subway day pass: KRW 3,500 / 265 yen / US$2.95
Subway locker: KRW 1,000 / 75 yen / US$0.85
Café breakfast: KRW 7,000 / 530 yen / US$5.91
Huge fried chicken lunch: KRW 7,500 / 568 yen / US$6.30
Delicious street food dinner: KRW 1,500 / 113 yen / US$1.30
Bottled water: 2L KRW 2,000? / 151 yen / US$1.70
Hite beer: KRW 3,000? / 227? yen / US$2.50?
Jjimjilbang overnight: KRW 10,000 / 758 yen / US$8.46

Average Day Total – All Travel Costs: KRW 35,500 / 2,692 yen / US$30

That’s the same cost as one overnight in a youth hostel in Japan.

It was a good thing we weren’t hung over from the previous night’s beer.  Somehow the middle-aged Korean man to my left, an empty seat between the two of us, seemed to be sleeping.  To my right my travel companion and fellow ALT Duncan was gripping onto his seat for dear life.  Failing to retain my composure with a death grip on my forehead, I succeeded in, as quietly and cleanly as one can, emptying my stomach into the provided grey bag soon to be sealed with its zip-lock.

On the rough sea between Tsushima, Japan and Busan, Korea the unforgiving waves tossed our little vessel around like the less fortunate toys of a toddler’s bath. Suddenly I regretted eating all of that discounted bread from the bakery earlier that day.  But we were determined to reach our destination.

Despite our best effort to get off the island on the Saturday of the Silver Week holidays, strong winds prevented Duncan and I from leaving on both boat and aircraft. Instead, we spent the night over at new ALT Shane’s, hosted by him and his visiting mum, who joined us for a bit of chat and beer guzzling.

That morning I received a cancellation notice phone call from the Busan jetfoil company a few hours before it was set to depart. Duncan came over so we could sort out a backup plan.

Wanting to waste as little of our precious holidays as possible, a dramatically more expensive trip around Kyushu interested the both of us so we looked up flight and rail pass information; on JR Kyushu a 3-day pass for the northern region costs 7000 yen (~US$75) and one for the whole major island runs 13000 yen (~US$145).  That’s a pretty good deal for the lengths one could travel.

Since the late morning flight to Fukuoka had also been cancelled, the early evening one was suddenly full of transferred passengers, thus our only option was to take the last flight.

Just before the bus up to the airport, we met again to grab a fast food dinner at the only Mos Burger on the island; I enjoyed its lovely vegetable-fry rice burger with a less healthy arrangement of chips (french fries) and onion rings, and my South African companion opted for a more traditional cheeseburger.  As expected, we left smelling like a deep fryer.

At the airport we arrived in good time to pay for our tickets and check in, which on the island only requires a fifteen-minute buffer.  The inbound flight that would provide us our aircraft was delayed due to the strong winds so we joked around in facility’s one departure gate, watching the plane whoosh by as it made a half-hour late landing attempt. Alas, a final announcement came over the speakers revealing that the plane would be returning to Fukuoka, and we went downstairs for a refund.

Laughing at the ridiculousness of the day, we rang up Shane and asked if we might come over with beer in hand.  His mother was visiting at the time, but she’s the kind who is perfectly happy to join in such activities.

The last bus had long gone, so we took an hour stroll over to his neighbourhood and met them at its newly opened small version of a big box store, where we all grabbed a six pack.  His mum was nice enough to bring us some take-away food from the restaurant where they’d just had dinner.

Michiko, who speaks fluent English after raising her son mostly in the States, told us a little about her work on the U.S. military base at Sasebo.  She manages the cafeteria and thus has to deal with American servicemen in a hungry state, though she never complained about them.  Apparently they end up producing a lot of waste through replacing things regardless if it’s necessary, to use the funds so their budget won’t get cut; unfortunately it seems they have trouble donating the leftovers.

The next day we resolved to make a second go at Korea, waited for another call from the jetfoil company, and were happily surprised when it wasn’t cancelled.

I'm not a plastic - Engrish doesn't escape Korea, either.

Northern ALT Kim had to come down from the north to take the boat since it didn’t run the previous day, so we got lunch and headed to the port together.  Without her intervention Duncan and I might have paid double for our jetfoil transport because the attendant kept insisting that the 8000 yen roundtrip deal they were running was for Japanese people only.  He called it in and was wrong.

Immigration took a matter of minutes as we waited behind a guy with a large backpack decked out with an Apple logo and Engrish, of course.

The boat ride is not one I’d soon care to relive, though the return trip was very smooth.  Normally it takes two to three hours from our departure point, but due to the weather it not only was rough enough to cause a significant portion of the passengers to use sick bags, it also took us four hours to arrive in Busan.

We arrived understandably worn out but unharmed at the dock in Busan, had a relatively prompt run through customs, and were on our way.

Just saw this off of the WordPress blog highlights.

Favourite: The grave that says “See you.”

Since I’ve been so lazy about writing lately, caught up in finishing reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and travelling and various other matters, it would be prudent to make a brief update before I document the rest of the highlights from my little trip to Korea this past holiday weekend.

Tsushima actually lies between the main island of Kyushu and the Korean peninsula. It’s just a 53 kilometre jetfoil boat ride to the nearest major city of Busan (also spelled Pusan), whilst the nearest city in Japan is actually more like 150 km away.  Thus it is actually realistic to take a little international weekend trip off the island.

This September, a couple national holidays of Japan lined up in a row, so one was added in between and this became what was dubbed Silver Week after the annual Golden Week of holidays at the end of April, sometimes the only chance people here get to travel.

After a year of living next to South Korea but never venturing over, I decided this was the optimal time.  Plus, my friend Allan just moved to Seoul. Duncan, the new ALT from South Africa, joined me.

Sadly, we couldn’t leave until Saturday afternoon, and after the boat and the backup plan of flying to Fukuoka and exploring more of Kyushu both fell through that day due to strong winds, we were left with just a night and two days before the return boat.  We made it onto a very rocky jetfoil to Busan the next day and opted to stay around there.

Up next are some highlights, but first, a couple notes.

• Busan is certainly a mix of the first- and third-worlds: It borrows a lot from Japan and sometimes improves on it with an excellent multilingual underground (subway).

• The cost of its too rapid development is a sewer system that requires one to dispose of toilet tissue in a bin rather than in the toilet.

• Touristing in Korea, even in a smaller city like Busan, is surprisingly cheap and extremely easy if you speak English, Chinese, or Japanese.  A mix is perfect.

First meal: Samgye-tang (Ginseng Chicken Soup) - With the usual arrangement of side dishes.

Gwangan Beach at night: "neon fireworks"

A less polished side of Beomeosa Temple

Pusan's mountains shroud the city's divisions

Artwork in Jangan-dong Station

Street vendor of Korean gyoza (jiaozi), meat skewers, and a delightful spicy red sauce mochi and cabbage?

Huge but fruitless underground shopping lanes underneath Seomyeon Station

Octopus and fish at one of the many vendors at Jalgachi Fish Market

More coming soon…