Shark Diving

Lee Ann, Jessica, Mark, Nadia and Daniel

I recently went to Busan to go shark diving at the Busan Aquarium. A friend of mine, Jessica, had been wanting to do it for a long time, and when she invited me to come along, I thought, "why not?" We got a whole group together, even though only four of us actually dove. It was Nadia, Lee Ann, Jessica, Daniel, Amy and Mark, my boyfriend. Since we were diving on Sunday, we had all of Saturday to hang out on the beach, which would have been excellent had the weather been warmer. I had worn my dress and bathing suit in anticipation of a beach day, but what we ended up getting was a whole lot of cold wind that even my beach towel wrapped around my shoulders couldn't keep out. I did however get in the water because it's nearly impossible for me to be near the ocean without putting my feet in it! I seriously considered actually swimming, but considering I didn't have any other clothing to wear for the rest of the day, I didn't think walking around in a wet bathing suit while being blasted by cold wind would do my health any good.

Very happy to be in the water.

Because we're, as a whole, indecisive, a lot of time was spent sitting on the beach throwing ideas around about what to do. In Busan, there is a jimjilbang that is supposedly the biggest in all of Asia. I've been wanting to go for a while since I have no qualms about being naked, but since the spa closes pretty late, we decided to do it later in the evening. We considered taking a boat tour, so we walked over to the pier in which the boats departed, but several people didn't want to do it because of price, weather and some other reasons that I don't remember. At least that killed some time. On our walk over to the pier, we discovered some trick art photographs so we had a fun, impromptu photo op. Because Daniel was leaving Busan early, we ended up sitting in a cafe

Look! The sun came out and we were able to tan.

drinking coffee until he had to leave for his train at 6:00 pm. After Daniel left, we went back to our Asian themed hostel and packed our bags for our adventure at Spa Land. The spa was definitely the best that I've been to since I've been here in Korea. They had outdoor foot baths, beds disguised as lounge chairs, all types of different saunas and an outdoor bathing area (only for the women.) BUT NO RAMEN! We were all starving by the time we got to Spa Land, so we decided to go eat some ramen since it's Korea and of course they'd have ramen. How dare they not have any!? It was so un-Korean that I was actually offended. Anyway, the spa was really fun. We went into the hottest sauna in the whole spa (94 degrees Celsius) willingly. Apparently there was a contest to see how long we could stay in there, but since I was starting to feel dizzy, I figured that it wouldn't be in my best interest to pass out in a freaking hot sauna. Plus, I was also being considerate to Mark since he wouldn't have to drag my unconscious body out of the sauna. I, predictably, don't have any pictures of the sauna because I consider walking around naked with a camera around my wrist to be bad manners. I'm sure it would be okay to take pictures in the saunas, but I get so ridiculously sweaty my camera would most definitely drown in my sweat. After the sauna we ate a lot of chicken then went back to the hostel since we had to wake up early the next morning for shark diving!

Mark and I at Haeundae Beach in Busan.

I was having a moment with my Winnie the Pooh towel.



Photo op outside of the lock.

Shark diving really isn't as dangerous as it sounds. If you aren't certified, they give you a three hour class on what exactly shark diving is, then before you're about to dive with the sharks, they go over the basics of diving like where your respirator is, what to do if the respirator falls out of your mouth, how to get water out of your mask while underwater, and something else that I can't remember. I was a good student though, I promsie! He also taught us a bunch of hand signals so we could communicate underwater. Those took me a while to respond to. When he'd flash the "OK" sign at me, I'd usually just stare at him blankly or give him a thumbs up, which means "go to the surface." That definitely wasn't the right response, but after a few more failures, I eventually got the hang of it. It was just weird.



Mark attempting to shove his massive bag in the locker.

This might sound surprising, but I actually wasn't nervous to dive with sharks. I was more nervous about the whole breathing underwater thing, or rather, not breathing underwater and dying. It takes a lot of faith to rely on a tank to give you air while you're in an area with no air. After our information session with our hilarious instructor, we had about three hours to kill until we had to be back for our dive. We decided to go eat at Papa John's, which was delicious as always, then we walked around the aquarium where I stared at the otters for a significant amount of time. I'm serious when I say that if I could have one as a pet, I would. I. Love. Otters. They are the most fantastic creatures to walk, or scurry, the Earth.

We were with Grey Nurse sharks and Black Tip Reef sharks

Once we all convened by the lockers, our instructor gave us all wet suits, booties and a vest thingy. I lived in California and was perfectly used to a wet suit and everything, but oh my gosh, I could not get the stupid thing on. Michael, our instructor, said that it's easier to get the wet suit on when it's wet. From what I remembered from my days in the Pacific, I thought it was more difficult to put on a wet suit when it's wet, but it had been so long since I had actually put one on, I decided to go ahead and trust the man. Perhaps I shouldn't have trusted him because it took Amy, Jessica and I a really long time to put our gear on. Mark of course, just slid his on, so he ended up waiting for us for about half an hour. We actually had to help each other because we were so helpless. I ended up getting blisters on my fingers from trying to pull on my wet suit, and considering both blisters were open, I was a little nervous about putting them in a tank full of sharks. There wasn't any blood though, so I was in the clear.



In the lock, getting ready to go into the tank.

Once we got everything on, we got tanks and weights for our waists so we could walk comfortably around on the tank floor. The tanks were so incredibly heavy that once he let go of the tank, I almost fell backwards. Mark had his on already, so I hobbled over to where he was standing and watched our instructor put the tanks on Jessica and Amy's back. Okay, so I know I'm a big, strong gal, but big, strong gals also like to be helped once in a while. Did our instructor think so? Not a chance. He told Mark to help Amy and Jessica by holding the tank backpacks underneath to relieve some of the weight on them, but left me to fend for myself. Was I peeved? A little bit. Since I'm not one to keep my mouth shut, I did "jokingly" complain, but then I basically accepted that I wasn't going to get any help when there were smaller girls present. Is that a stupid thing to get irritated about? Probably, but I really can't help it. Okay. Rant's over.



The Grouper: the most fearsome specimen in the tank.

We all made our way slowly to the lock, which is an area that's sectioned off from the main tank and is used to keep animals separated from the bigger fish. Mark was completely fine since he apparently has to carry backpacks that are much heavier than our measely tanks and waist weights. In the lock were several little sharks that weren't big enough to hang out with the big fish yet. So we learned all our basics in the tank and I'm proud to say that I passed with flying colors. It was definitely weird to breath through the respirator (I really don't even know if that's the correct term). At first I felt like I wasn't getting enough air and I really just couldn't get used to it. This brought back my fear of being under 15 feet of water and panicking because I couldn't breath. I did finally adapt to it, however, but Amy kept having problems because she felt like she wasn't getting enough air. We were instructed not to wave our hands around once we were in the tank because the big stupid grouper have been known to chomp on people's arms. They don't eat them or bite them, but you'll have a grouper on your arm until he decides that you aren't a fit meal. If a grouper decided to eat our arm, we were also instructed not to try to pull our arm out since the grouper's teeth slant inward and pulling our arm out would result in a whole lot of teeth going into our arm. The animals in the tank were, as a whole, pretty docile, except for the turtles, which they took out of the tank to avoid any injuries. Don't worry, they didn't throw us into the water with Hammerheads and Great White sharks. We were with the most docile sharks that couldn't care less that there were delicious, fleshy humans present.
To get into the tank, you have to rappel yourself down from a fiber glass tunnel, which is a tunnel that the people in the aquarium can walk through and see everything. So we made our way over to stand on top of the tunnel. Once we were lined up in order, he made us get down on our knees so we would be at lower risk of falling off the tunnel. When I went to get on my knees, something was unbalanced on my pack because I kept floating up to the left. I almost freaked out because I was terrified I was going to fall off the tunnel, but the instructor adjusted a strap and then I was able to sit on my knees without anymore incidents.

Not my best angle, but this is me rappelling.

Mark went down first, then me, Amy and finally, Jessica. Rappelling down wasn't hard at all. I had to remember to keep popping my ears on my way down which I can do very easily by almost yawning. I didn't have to plug my nose to pop my ears, so my journey into the tank went off without a hitch. As soon as I got into the tank, a shark swam RIGHT over my head. I even ducked because he would have slapped me with his fin. I can't express how cool that was. Mark and I were pretty low maintenance in the tank, so the instructor paid much more attention to Amy and Jessica because he knew that Amy was having issues with breathing and staying balanced. So Mark and I basically followed the three of them around while we were checking out everything in the tank. The instructor really liked our group (we were pretty awesome) so he spent some time finding us a lot of shark teeth to take home for souvenirs. We rented an underwater camera, so we were able to take some pretty fantastic pictures. The camera died however, so we weren't able to get that many, and since our instructor loved us, he gave us a full refund for the camera.

Trying to maintain my Korean-ness while underwater.

Mark looks like he's going to murder that fish.

Because my friends are awesome, Nadia and Lee Ann took a lot of pictures while we were in the tank. Nadia also made a video, which turned out to be pretty incredible. Enjoy!



Beijing

I’m not exactly sure why writing about Beijing has taken me so long to write. I loved Beijing. I’ve even considered moving to Beijing because I loved it so much. So why on Earth has it taken me almost four months to write about the trip of a lifetime? Who knows, but I'm writing about it now. It's never too late, right?

The Lunar New Year fell on February 2, 3 and 4 this year. Since it fell on a weekend, we had five whole days to travel somewhere. I've been dying to go to Beijing since, well, I was about 14 years old, but actually making it to Beijing just hadn't worked out. The visa fees for an American are exorbitant, so even if the plane ticket is cheap, the visa fee cancels out any savings. This time though, the girls and I said we might as well pay the visa fee because we'll have to pay it eventually. So we planned ahead and paid for something each month so we wouldn't have to pay for everything all in one month.

We left for Seoul Tuesday night so we wouldn't have to wake up at an ungodly hour on Wednesday morning to catch our flight. We had beds booked at our usual hostel in Hongdae, but had we known how little sleep we were going to get that night, we never would have stayed there. We were determined to get a good rest before our flight on Wednesday, so after arriving at the hostel around 11 PM, we got ready for bed and were in our beds by 12 PM. After being asleep for maybe two hours, a group of drunk foreigners came stumbling into the room. As the night continued, a couple had sex under Nadia's bed, a drunk, British guy poked me in the butt and asked if I wanted to snuggle and another couple had sex upstairs not so quietly.
Needless to say, those two hours of sleep was all I got for the whole night. I didn't have high expectations for a perfect sleep, but I didn't anticipate all the shenanigans that went on. I'm never staying in a mixed dorm again. The brilliant thing about our hostel in Hongdae is that the subway stop (Hongik University) directly connects to the airport. So we got out of bed around 6:00 AM, walked down to the subway and we were off to the airport. We arrived at the airport stress free then did some duty free shopping with the rest of Korea. Koreans are crazy about their deals so the place was mobbed with Korean women and their shopping bags, but I pushed and shoved like the rest of them and acquired my watch that I have been wanting since my trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. Never have I slept through an ENTIRE flight. Granted, it's a pretty short flight, but I slept through everything: drinks, food, even take off/landing. We arrived in Beijing in about two hours and even though I was still ridiculously tired, I was determined to enjoy myself. 
As soon as we got off the plane, the excitement of being in Beijing started to kick in. Even though the airport was nearly deserted, which was a little weird, we still took a lot of pictures. I wasn’t as prepared for this trip as I normally am. I didn’t do any thorough research, but the one thing I did was find out how to get to downtown Beijing from the airport and how to get to our hotel from downtown Beijing. So we walked through the airport lugging our big suitcases and came to the desk where we were supposed to buy our tickets for the bus into downtown. When we exchanged our money at Incheon, we got maybe thirty 100 Yuan bills, which is basically equivalent to thirty American $100 bills. It isn’t worth the same amount of money, but imagine breaking a $100 for a $5 purchase. The salesperson would be pretty upset, which is an understatement considering how pissed off the bus ticket guy was. He literally slammed our money down on the counter and gave us the death stare as he slammed our tickets down on the counter. After we had all bought our tickets, we didn’t know where to go to catch the bus. Since we were all pretty scared and not wanting to talk to the bus ticket guy, we stood in the corner and kept throwing anxious glances at the demon behind the counter. Finally I went up to him and asked him as nicely as I could if he could please point me to the pickup point. While staring at me, he gestured behind him, like that was supposed to help. Anyway, after this debacle we learned our first lesson about Beijing: If we were going to survive at all on this trip, we had to do it without the assistance of other people.

We made it to the right bus but as I was going to put my luggage under the bus, like normal people do, the bus driver made us take our luggage on the bus. Since we all had gigantic suitcases, we all questioned the wisdom of bringing our suitcases on the bus with us, but decided to go with it so we wouldn’t provoke anymore death stares. Needless to say, bringing the suitcases on the bus was a huge pain, especially since the aisle was so small. We were also the last ones on the bus so there were barely any seats and there weren’t many options as to where to put our luggage. We eventually threw them in the very back of the bus and that was that.

Our journey to our hotel was a disaster since the bus didn’t drop us off at the place where I had originally thought based on the small amount of research that I did. So we walked in a lot of circles and eventually asked a policeman how to get to our hotel. We had to ask someone else after the policeman and we eventually made it to the hotel.

On a side note, we got a lost A LOT in Beijing so be prepared to hear a lot of ranting and raving about the useless Lonely Planet we had because other than telling us which subway stop the place was at, it in no way told us how to actually get to the place.

I was pretty pleased with our hotel. It was definitely a budget hotel, but it was clean, it had beds (sort of: one of us ended up sleeping on a cot made out of the equivalent of cardboard), it had a real shower and it was in a good location: right next to Beijing Station, the most beautiful building in all of Beijing. Because it was a holiday in China, we expected less people, but while there were a lot of people, there weren’t many restaurants open. So guess what our first meal in China was? You got it. McDonald’s. I’m ashamed to admit how often we frequented Mickey D’s, but in our defense, they were everywhere, sometimes across the street from the other, and they had clean bathrooms.

Speaking of bathrooms: after China, I became a pro at using the squatty. The only real toilet was in our hotel room and the handicap stalls in fancier restaurants, which I’m also ashamed to admit that I used. Thank you, China for teaching me the ways of the squatty. (P.S. Bring your own toilet paper!).

The first day in China was spent walking around. Nothing exciting happened except we got lost and ended up finding the Silk Market, which is the most “famous” place to buy those fake Chanel and Louis Vuitton purses that Korean’s swear by.

Have I mentioned the fireworks? I felt like I was in a war zone every time a firework went off (which was all the time). I had to fight the urge not to “hit the deck” every time one blew up. After a while I got used to it, but I was very high strung and tired, so you can only imagine how high I jumped when a firework exploded, especially near our hotel. By 7:00 pm we were all exhausted and decided to go to sleep so we could have a fresh start the next morning. Because we went to sleep early, we missed the awesome firework finale at 12:00 AM. I wasn’t that disappointed though. Fireworks are fireworks and I’d rather not be apart of the firework casualties that skyrocket during the Chinese New Year.

The next day we had our first Chinese meal. I’d be lying if I said I loved it. Remember that hot and sour soup that tastes so delicious in America? Well in China, it smells like…butt. And it tastes exactly how it smells. We ordered a chicken dish, fried rice, a beef dish and the hot and sour soup. The beef, chicken and fried rice was pretty decent, but it was difficult to enjoy due to the rank smell of the hot and sour soup. Even though we had pushed it to the corner of the table, the smell kept wafting over and making us gag. Not cool, hot and sour soup. 

Because of our refusal to enlist the help of Chinese people, we were forced to use the subway A LOT. By the end of the China trip, I was so sick of the subway that I never wanted to see a subway again. Interesting side note: in China, when you go into the subway, you have to put your bags through an x-ray machine. Time consuming, but smart, idea. The second day we went to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, which were must-sees in my Beijing LP, but I honestly wasn’t that impressed with either tourist attraction. 

Anyway, for the Forbidden City part, we bought these headsets that gave us a tour in English, but due to technical difficulties, were ofen learning about a building that was no where near me. After a couple hours of walking through the Palace, I was completely over it. I don't remember a single thing from that audio tour other than the fact that the big metal pots sporatically dispersed around the palace were filled with water in case of fire. Oh, there was also something about pork and salt, but I don't really remember the specific details there either.

Three things of interest to note: in Beijing they have these awesome fruit sticks. They have strawberries, cranapples and other fruity yumminess all on a stick and dipped in honey. 

All varieties of fruits dipped in honey goodness. Nom nom nom.

I was thoroughly enjoying my strawberry stick of honey awesomeness.

Another side note: the babies in China do not wear diapers. They have slits in their pants so when they need to go, they just squat and let go. 

No diapers in China!

One final side note: the escalators in Beijing are crazy fast. The escalators basically launch you to the surface. It's incredibly awesome. Here's a fun video:

Our Professional Duck Cutter

Tiananmen Square is a place steeped in history (if you don’t know about it, just youtube it), yet I failed to feel anything but a slight interest. Apparently every night they lower the flag, which ended up being the high light of our trip to Tiananmen Square. It reminded me of the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace. They also close the Square immediately after the lowering of the flag, so we were booted out of the Square before we could take some more night pictures. I did however, get asked by a cute Chinese girl if she could take a picture with me, so I happily obliged. I think it had something to do with my light hair because Nadia and Lee Ann weren't asked. 

They prepare the meat prettily.

If you go to Beijing, you have to try the Peking Duck. We went to this place called Da Dong, which was an upper-class, beautiful restaurant. Everything in China is extremely cheap, even peking duck at a five star restaurant. There was a lot of pomp and circumstance in cutting the duck: a professional "duck cutter" comes to your table and cuts the duck in front of you. 

I've never been a huge duck fan, but the duck at Da Dong was surprisingly delicious, especially after you roll everything up into a Chinese taco and shove it in your mouth. I was a pro at rolling up my Chinese duck tacos and I have evidence to prove it!

The meal also came with some weird, grilled rice cake with sugar, foggy fruit and for dessert we ordered tiramisu, which came in a martini glass, and strawberry sorbet, which came in a champagne flute. We also ordered the equivalent of cotton candy in the shape of flowers. The whole meal was so much fun and delicious, and to top it all off, we won a bottle of wine (which we never drank because we didn't have a bottle opener).

Free bottle of wine!

Jinshanling

The next day was the WALL! I was so excited despite the fact that we had to wake up at 5 AM. We decided to book a tour with our hotel since the area of the wall we wanted to go to wasn't that easy to get to. I had done a lot of research in this area since going to the Wall has been my life long dream. We decided to go to Jinshanling, a part of the wall that hasn't been completely reconstructed for masses of people. It's more secluded and isn't full of tourists and hawkers. 

The hike up to the wall wasn’t meant for the faint-hearted. It wasn’t Seoraksan by a long shot, but I was definitely huffing and puffing my way up the trail. Did I mention it was snowing? The snow should have made it more magical and awesome, but all it did was create little ice balls that kept hitting me in the eyes and getting my sweater wet. Nadia and I stopped a few times to catch our breath, while Lee Ann made herself a new Chinese friend that ended up helping her along the wall for the duration of our wall visit.

I made it up to the wall though. I had finally accomplished a life-long dream. I was on the Great Wall of China, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, a wall so ancient and full of history and I felt…nothing. I expected tears, excitement, maybe a fist pump, but as I stood on the wall and looked towards Mongolia, I felt tragically empty. I couldn’t believe it. I struggled to find some deeper emotion, to force a lone tear out of one eye, but I got nothing.

Had I lost my travel bug, I wondered? Had I lost the thing that has defined and directed my life from the age of 12? I’ve been to 19 countries in the 24 years that I’ve been alive. Not many people can say they’ve been to five counties, yet there I stood on the Great Wall of China, feeling as if I were walking down a simple, snow-covered street with my friends and some random Chinese ladies. Okay, maybe that's not completely true. The Wall is beautiful. From any point on the Wall you can look in both directions and see it winding its way across China. It's magnificent and I am in no way saying that it didn't impress me. I guess I expected more feelings to erupt inside me since I am the type of girl that feels A LOT.

Reflecting on that perplexing moment raises many questions and admissions, the most important, I think, being that I have grown weary of palaces, temples, tourist traps and overpriced souvenirs. The Forbidden Palace was, to say the least, anticlimactic; Tiananmen Square failed to evoke any life-altering emotion; the temples all bore me with their predictable architecture and countless stairs. Perhaps after living in a foreign country, merely visiting the tourist hot spots isn't enough for me anymore. Living in Korea has taught me that the only way to really experience and enjoy a country is to be there longer than five days. I wanted to experience Beijing on a much deeper level than going to the palaces and temples that our LP suggested for us.

I’ve been searching for something to move me, and I've found it here in Korea. I’ve quoted Julia Roberts from Eat, Pray, Love before, and I’ll do it again now: “I want to MARVEL at something!” In the past two months, I have felt more than I have in over a year. I’ve felt more passion, drive, ambition, hope and faith than ever before, not because of a different country, city or landmark, but because of a person. Is that really what I’ve been searching for all along? I digress.

We returned to Beijing and immediately took a nap. Climbing, literally CLIMBING, the wall was not easy and I knew I would feel the soreness in my legs the next day. That night we had the most fabulous dinner yet. Beijing is an extremely international city, which was refreshing after being in Korea, one of the most cloistered countries I've ever traveled to. We opted for French food, because it's one of the best cuisines in the world. We found Cafe de la Poste through my Lonely Planet, and even though we got lost trying to find it, it was definitely worth it once we found it. We began our meal with three appetizers: raw steak with vinegrette, goat cheese and honey on rolls and sausage and fried potatoes with mustard. All were exquisite, especially the raw steak, which I still can't believe I ate. For the main course, I ordered steak (of course) which was smothered in onions and red wine sauce. The steak was cooked perfectly and the potatoes that came with it reminded me of Paris.

See? Isn't it beautiful? These are of course the before and after shots, which as you can see, the dish was totally nasty. NOT. I even wiped my plate clean with my bread like a true Parisian.

For dessert, I of course ordered mousse, one of my favorite desserts of all time. It was so light and fluffy and was the perfect finale to an otherwise perfect meal. We ate like Queens at the Cafe and paid less than 30 dollars. 

Ninja fighting in front of the Forbidden City

The rest of the time spent in China was deemed "Spend the Rest of your Money on Knock Offs and Makeup." We went shopping for the remainder of our time in Beijing because we wanted to buy some souvenirs and to practice haggling with the locals (I give Nadia props here because she was the Master Haggler). There's a lot of flirting and joking involved, which I got the gist of, but Lee Ann was so hopeless that Nadia haggled for her. We walked around the Forbidden Palace again and had an impromptu photo op in front of the Forbidden City in which we were ninjas who weren't able to kick so high. That night we went to a German restaurant. The dish I ordered was actually a gigantic leg of fried pork (healthy, I know) with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut. It was delicious, but simply too big for even me to eat.

Monster pork leg

Final conclusions on Beijing. I loved the city. It's extremely polluted however, and my burning eyes would remind me at the end of the day that Beijing probably wouldn't be an ideal place for me to live. I love how international the city is, despite the fact that shopping seems to be the major past-time for the people there. Because I was only there for five days, I feel like I can't give an accurate analysis on the city. The people, the culture, the day to day activities escaped me as I tried to fit in as many tourist attractions as I could. It was the trip of a lifetime, however. I was with the best of friends, in the best of cities eating, shopping, walking and living. What more can a gal ask for? 

Soldier Picture: Check!