Pusan Prattling

Welcome to the Love Motel!
see all photos »

As announced earlier in the evening, the ship came to a stop in Pusan harbour and the engines were turned off. A pity though that it was at 3 am and both of us woke up... bugger! We got to sleep quickly but were woken up around 6 am by announcements in Korean and Japanese, without English subtitles. We dragged ourselves out of bed after an hour or so and packed our gear. Outside was Korea and the beginning of a new set of experiences. Clearing customs we threw our packs onto a bus heading to the central train station (W900), so that we could find some cheapish accommodation. Adrienne was exhausted and keen to take the pack off.

Close up of patterns
see all photos »

Tourist information provided us with the names and directions of a couple of motels. We chose the cheapest (Pusan Motel; W30,000 per night) and set off in what we thought was the right direction. We had been walking a while without finding the motel, while Adrienne was getting more and more tired. We stopped at Hertz to get some guidance on where we were going and promptly found out that it was the wrong direction - turns out we were looking at the map upside down. Amateurs! Thankfully Hertz took pity on us, put us into a car and they drove us to the motel. Good on ya Hertz :-)

Arriving at the motel we decided that it also rents rooms out by the hour...

Adrienne practicing her tough look
see all photos »

Arriving at the motel we decided that it also rents rooms out by the hour, judging by the pink round bed, complimentary prophylactics, cigarette burns on the headboard and a very blue TV channel. Sean wasn't allowed control of the TV remote for obvious reasons. We had plenty of hours to burn but Adrienne was not feeling at all good, so we chilled for a while. Eventually we checked out some of the streets and had a meal that did not look like the pictures on the wall. There were heaps of shops with Cyrillic writing on them (Russian sailors?) and the streets were really dirty by Japanese standards, still it was interesting. Getting back to the motel Adrienne took a turn for the worse and after a couple of hours started to run a high temperature. Sean went about getting more water and tracking down "normal" food - two packs of digestive biscuits. Adrienne's temperature dropped after a while and it was time to sleep.

see all photos »

Sean's big find was that all the convenience stores have hot water and chopsticks, which meant he could get a feed of noodles (~W850), hot water and a table to eat at. Granted the motel had hot water but it meant super cheap meals in Korea!

Adrienne's strength was up in the morning and it was time for a little bit of adventure. We headed out to Beomeosa Temple, in north Pusan, for our first outting on the Pusan subway - a piece of piss, except that the ticket machine only accepted W1000 notes. For each of us it cost W2600 return because we were travelling two sections. Getting directions from a guy selling eggs sent us to the nearby bus and to the temple (W1000 for the bus trip, W1000 entry into the temple grounds). Talk about an amazing complex! We both believed that it kicked the arse of the Japanese temples. Similar style to Japan but with beautiful, intricate patterns painted on the buildings.

Geumjeong Fortress was a 1.6 km walk from the temple but Adrienne was buggered after going through Beomeosa and we decided to head back to the motel. Sean had another nutritious meal of instant noodles and Adrienne went to sleep.