james new brain

SOUTH KOREA – 2007.09.21 – DAY25

Gyungju/Busan Vacation Post 1 of 9

This week I’ll cover my vacation within a vacation, checking out the south-west South Korean peninsula, the cities of Gyungju and Busan (or Pusan), and seeing some cultural relics, and doing some hiking along the way. AND—> I get to go to the beach-yesssssssss haha. Additionally, I borrow a few pictures to fill out the coverage in these posts, but cite the photographers so’s ya’ll know what you’re looking at.

At Nambu Bus Terminal in Seoul, about to skeet out of town. (PHOTO BY SILVIA RIEGLER-HEISSENBERGER)

I tried to pack like Colin this trip, meaning I was prepared to sleep on a park bench under a blanket i brought, poop outside with my own toilet paper, and light the groups way through tunnels with my head lamp. If need be.

Maricarmen you haven’t met yet. From Mexico, and awesome? yes, completely. waiting for the bus. (PHOTO BY AMY DELAHANTY)

Bus station waits. Amy looks like a peanuts character, and that dude looking at Ryo is Charles Maxine, who is from now on called The Elusive French-man, as he seemed to elude my camera for most of the trip.

The 6 hour bus ride through the country to GYUNGJU was uneventful, but nice. There are no bathrooms on these charter buses (unlike the rest of the world’s charter buses) so every two hours we’d make a pit stop at an unnaturally huge and bustling rest stop. Also, on the road, there’s much more open land, but still views are almost always broken up by the next church with a neon red cross illuminating it for miles, or more of those towering housing farms.

You can clearly see that we stayed at the Hanjin Hostel.

One angle of an inner-hostel-courtyard view. The bottom right door led to the 6 person room.

Another angle from the same spot. Much warmer, huh.

Silvia and Katharina split a two person room. My flash is ruining what should be a picture of Katharina realizing that the one and only light in the windowless room isn’t turning on.

Um, and this is the adjoining “bathroom”. (PHOTO BY SILVIA RIEGLER-HEISSENBERGER)

Yea so I guess Silvia and Kat got a little screwed, because I found our room to be NICE.