Pusan and High School Musical 3

Here I sit watching High School Musical 3 on TV, because it's in English, and I do like it. High School! I've been living that since 1982. But I digress. . .

The family traveled by speed train to Busan/Pusan (same thing) this weekend. We left school a bit early on Friday, having taken 1/2 personal day. We took a bus to Seoul and then the KTX train to Pusan, a three hour ride. I've ridden on one once, but it was the first time for the rest of the family to be on a train! Very fun. Once we arrive we took a cab to our hotel. We had about a 15 minute scare while the hotel seemed to have trouble realizing we had a room booked. But they got it figured it out and all was well. The weather cooperated Friday night and Saturday. Highlights included seeing the Pacific Ocean (only a five minute walk away), seeing the hour-long fireworks display off the Wangali Bridge, watching Anna ice skate on the 7th floor of Shinsigae (the largest Department Store in the World), eating out for both traditional Korean BBQ and at TGIF's and visiting the UN Cemetery. A few unusual things happened too: we saw several tiny hummingbirds and walked past the windows of the ladies of the evening!

A great part of the trip was getting to spend the day with Mary. She was a student of mine 17 years ago! Now she teaches English in Pusan. She was brave enough to spend Saturday with us as we toured the city using the City Bus Tour. She also sweated out ice skating with Anna and listening to her prattle on about this and that. All of that and a nice walk on the beach and brunch at the Weston made for a great weekend.

There's always a few misadventures. The only thing this time happened to be the temperature of our hotel room - 29 degrees C, which is. . . HOT. We didn't know how to turn it down. Thankfully there was a fan in the room. We managed, though. Saturday evening was PERFECT! Mary and her boyfriend took us out for bulgogi (yummy!) before watching the fireworks. The walk back to the hotel was a lot of fun on such a gorgeous night - as we walked along the sidewalk next to the ocean. (sigh)

I'll post pics and videos on FB for friends to see.

Enjoy your week. We will now that we are refreshed and rested.

(For those of you interested - the cast of HSM 3 are now singing about Prom.)