These are a few of our favorite things in Busan. The family and I went to Busan on Saturday morning and came back Sunday evening for a little get away. It is roughly a 3 hour drive as guided by Mappy (4 hours with the stop at McDonald's in Jinju, I had the Bulgogi burger set with a spicy shrimp burger to share, while E had a Chicken McNugget happy meal and Lynn had the cheeseburger set) 
with traffic from Okpo to Busan, or the part we went to at least. Busan is a giant city and we went about 3/4 of the way through it to get to the Westin Chosun on Hundae beach.The hotel was very nice as was the room we stayed in (although it had two single beds, which is somewhere between a single and full size in the US). It was pretty much what you would expect from a Westin in the United States, a few nice restaurants, an overpriced gift shop, and some swanky banquet halls. The Fitness center for this place was phenomenal. Two floors, glass walls overlooking the beach, indoor pool 
and separate men and women's spas. The men's looked like a seen from Gung-Ho. Ethan and I took our shoes off (you had to at the door) and headed in. At first, standard locker room. Very nice, but nothing out of the ordinary. They did have a room full of message chairs and a big screen TV overlooking the beach which was pretty cool (however it was Korean CNN on, so that was out). Then we found the Gung-Ho room. It was this huge room (also with windows overlooking the beach and big screens) with four or five small pools (may be hot tubs with no bubbles, didn't find out) with naked Korean men getting in and out of them. My first thought was about whisking Ethan out of there as fast as possible., which I did with him asking questions the whole time back out. I am not exactly sure what a fancy Korean spa totally entails, but I am sure I will not find out first hand. We did enjoy our time at the pool though, even Addison. We were all given our standard issue Westin Chosun swim cap (even Addison, no exposed hair in the pool) and went for a swim. 
This was the first place I have seen Koreans taking pictures (normally it is just us, you don't take photos at Meijers back home) but everyone was on vacation here so they were snapping away as well. One of their favorite things to take photos of was Ethan believe it or not. I had people come up to me on the beach on numerous occasions asking to take their picture with him (Your boy is beautiful, OK I get photo with him?). I should start charging 5000 won a photo and just turn this into a side business in Busan. While in Busan we also got an opportunity to eat at Outback steakhouse (no rules, just right!), pretty much like in the states, no bloomin' onion though, but the steaks were good (real Australian beef) and they had Fosters on tap (Australian for beer if you are in America, otherwise not). We also enjoyed the buffet at the hotel, lots and lots of food, both American brunch style and Korean food as well. You could have a waffle with kimchi on it if you so desired... This was our American food weekend, as we also hit McDonald's on the way out of town (more mcnuggets, a big mac, and a bacon/tomato burger, plus spicy chicken strips to share). That should hold us until we come back in 6 weeks, since I don't eat McDonald's twice in 2 months in the states and I ate it twice in two days this weekend. 
We also went to the aquarium in Busan, which was very cool. Big shark tank you walk through, various other tanks, and a glass bottom boat ride where you can feed the fish (Lynn and E did this one, I stayed with Addison and watched the feeding of the sea otters). It was a pretty neat aquarium all told, and Ethan seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. The last highlight of the weekend, especially for Lynn, was the trip to Costco! That's right, just like back home they have a Costco here (and our membership card works too!) and we finished off our trip with a shopping trip. They have many of the same things as home (Kirkland brand products, some of foods, diapers, household products, clothes, etc.) and some were new to us (either Korean or European products as well). You could buy ramen noodles by the case (just in case you need 400 packages of Ramen), Kimchi in ten pound bags, and they were serving samples of pork belly in the meat department (not bad, but not my favorite). My favorite item at Costco though had to be the Soju. That is right, they sell beer, wine, and liquor like back home. A 12 pack of Miller Lite was $20 (I passed on that) a fifth of Jim Beam was $25 (that came home with us) and you could get a 4 LITER bottle of Soju (60 proof instead of the regular 40 proof) for $8.
4 Liters! Water is not that cheap. That is essentially like buying vodka at $1.50 a bottle. A bottle of white zin (Beringer again) was $15, I could have bought 8 liters of Soju for that. I started to actually think of how much things cost in terms of Soju for a while (That package of cheese is 8 liters of Soju, the bag of shrimp is 12 liters of Soju). I almost bought it because it was so cheap, but then I remembered that cheap does not mean good and I would just have a bigger bottle of sweet potato vodka that I don't like at home. We ended up coming away with baby products, frozen foods (hamburgers and pizza as well for a taste of home), cereal and a few snacks and a big overstuffed floor blanket for the Addison to play on at the apartment. All in all, not a bad trip to Costco to end our mini-vacation...
with traffic from Okpo to Busan, or the part we went to at least. Busan is a giant city and we went about 3/4 of the way through it to get to the Westin Chosun on Hundae beach.The hotel was very nice as was the room we stayed in (although it had two single beds, which is somewhere between a single and full size in the US). It was pretty much what you would expect from a Westin in the United States, a few nice restaurants, an overpriced gift shop, and some swanky banquet halls. The Fitness center for this place was phenomenal. Two floors, glass walls overlooking the beach, indoor pool 
and separate men and women's spas. The men's looked like a seen from Gung-Ho. Ethan and I took our shoes off (you had to at the door) and headed in. At first, standard locker room. Very nice, but nothing out of the ordinary. They did have a room full of message chairs and a big screen TV overlooking the beach which was pretty cool (however it was Korean CNN on, so that was out). Then we found the Gung-Ho room. It was this huge room (also with windows overlooking the beach and big screens) with four or five small pools (may be hot tubs with no bubbles, didn't find out) with naked Korean men getting in and out of them. My first thought was about whisking Ethan out of there as fast as possible., which I did with him asking questions the whole time back out. I am not exactly sure what a fancy Korean spa totally entails, but I am sure I will not find out first hand. We did enjoy our time at the pool though, even Addison. We were all given our standard issue Westin Chosun swim cap (even Addison, no exposed hair in the pool) and went for a swim. 
This was the first place I have seen Koreans taking pictures (normally it is just us, you don't take photos at Meijers back home) but everyone was on vacation here so they were snapping away as well. One of their favorite things to take photos of was Ethan believe it or not. I had people come up to me on the beach on numerous occasions asking to take their picture with him (Your boy is beautiful, OK I get photo with him?). I should start charging 5000 won a photo and just turn this into a side business in Busan. While in Busan we also got an opportunity to eat at Outback steakhouse (no rules, just right!), pretty much like in the states, no bloomin' onion though, but the steaks were good (real Australian beef) and they had Fosters on tap (Australian for beer if you are in America, otherwise not). We also enjoyed the buffet at the hotel, lots and lots of food, both American brunch style and Korean food as well. You could have a waffle with kimchi on it if you so desired... This was our American food weekend, as we also hit McDonald's on the way out of town (more mcnuggets, a big mac, and a bacon/tomato burger, plus spicy chicken strips to share). That should hold us until we come back in 6 weeks, since I don't eat McDonald's twice in 2 months in the states and I ate it twice in two days this weekend. 
We also went to the aquarium in Busan, which was very cool. Big shark tank you walk through, various other tanks, and a glass bottom boat ride where you can feed the fish (Lynn and E did this one, I stayed with Addison and watched the feeding of the sea otters). It was a pretty neat aquarium all told, and Ethan seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. The last highlight of the weekend, especially for Lynn, was the trip to Costco! That's right, just like back home they have a Costco here (and our membership card works too!) and we finished off our trip with a shopping trip. They have many of the same things as home (Kirkland brand products, some of foods, diapers, household products, clothes, etc.) and some were new to us (either Korean or European products as well). You could buy ramen noodles by the case (just in case you need 400 packages of Ramen), Kimchi in ten pound bags, and they were serving samples of pork belly in the meat department (not bad, but not my favorite). My favorite item at Costco though had to be the Soju. That is right, they sell beer, wine, and liquor like back home. A 12 pack of Miller Lite was $20 (I passed on that) a fifth of Jim Beam was $25 (that came home with us) and you could get a 4 LITER bottle of Soju (60 proof instead of the regular 40 proof) for $8.
4 Liters! Water is not that cheap. That is essentially like buying vodka at $1.50 a bottle. A bottle of white zin (Beringer again) was $15, I could have bought 8 liters of Soju for that. I started to actually think of how much things cost in terms of Soju for a while (That package of cheese is 8 liters of Soju, the bag of shrimp is 12 liters of Soju). I almost bought it because it was so cheap, but then I remembered that cheap does not mean good and I would just have a bigger bottle of sweet potato vodka that I don't like at home. We ended up coming away with baby products, frozen foods (hamburgers and pizza as well for a taste of home), cereal and a few snacks and a big overstuffed floor blanket for the Addison to play on at the apartment. All in all, not a bad trip to Costco to end our mini-vacation...
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