Happy New Year! We just got finished celebrating the Solar New Year!

I had originally planned to spend the weekend with Su-Jin in Fukuoka, but plans had to change. So, we spent the weekend in Busan. We stayed at the Novotel Ambassador, it was right on the beach. When I say right on the beach I mean that we had breakfast next to it.

We arrived very late Friday night, got some dinner and went to bed. We both wanted to get up early for the breakfast buffet. It was funny to see Koreans presented with other options for breakfast than kimchee and rice. They'd stand and hold their empty plate for a while and then circle the buffet trying to figure out what all the strange food was. Welcome to my fucking world.

It rained most of the day Saturday, so we checked out the downtown area and some of the big department stores. I still can't find anywhere other than Seoul to buy video games and movies.

On Sunday the weather was better, so we went for a walk on the beach in the morning. Then, we headed to the "Sports Complex." In Busan, all of the stadiums are in one big area. The baseball stadium is about the same size as most large minor league stadiums in the US. Seating maybe 15,000? Then, we headed to one of the university areas for coffee and shopping.

Dinner on Sunday was an adventure. I wanted to go to a microbrewery, but we think it was out of business. So, we headed to the beach for one of the seafood restaurants. I wanted crab and Su-Jin wanted sashimi. We wound up getting sashimi. It was a simple miscommunication. One of the sides they served with the meal was squid tentacles. The problem was that they were fresh and still moving. Then we ordered rice. It came with a large pot of Korean soup called dwinjon jjigae. I like dwinjon jjiggae. There were vegetables in it, so I chose to dig around a bit and see if there were any really tasty bits at the bottom. I discovered a fishhead the size of a fist at the bottom, complete with eyes. I could only imagine the look of terror on my face. The sashimi was really fresh and actually quite delicious, but the tentacles and fishhead were enough to put me off my dinner.

After dinner, I purchased roman candles(legal here!) and chased Su-Jin around the beach with them. Seriously, I only chased her a little. :)

We left Monday afternoon after another round of shopping and goofing off and returned to colorful Daegu. Good vacation. I still can't find a real Korean comic store or a video game store worth going to. Arcades are much more plentiful in Busan, as are movie theatres. It's was nice to get out of Daegu and out from under the ever watchful eye of Mrs. Kim for a weekend. It was great spending time with Su-Jin. I'm starting to think she likes me... :-)

Classes were tame until Friday. All the kids were excited for the weekend and those that showed up were determined to take it out on me. I was a punching bag. I was probably punched at least 50 times by small Korean fists on Friday. I had enough when a girl that comes up to my thigh decided to slap me in the back hard enough for it to hurt. I marched her to the Korean teacher and had the following exchange:

Korean teacher: (Korean speaking)
Korean girl: (Korean speaking)
Me:...
Korean teacher: She says she wanted to say, "Hello."
Me: I taught English for Kids:Book One. It does not mention fists when saying, "Hello."
Korean teacher: What should I tell her?
Me: There are other ways to say, "Hello." "Hello," for example.
Korean Teacher...Ok.

Jerks. I couldn't get on the train to Busan fast enough.