Two Days in Busan

I love film festivals. It’s a bunch of movie geeks come to experience or exhibit new and exciting films. South by Southwest in Austin used to have a pretty good selection and I’d go and try to predict which short films would be in the Oscars race that year. It was always the short films that interested me because of the animated experimentation factor and intense details needed to tell a story in less than ten minutes.

My stepson, James, and I headed down on the 50 minute flight from Seoul…

early on Saturday morning, checked into the little hotel and headed right to the beach for a seaside lunch.

We were on a burger mission and stopped at Sharky’s. The food was overpriced and pretty poor. Taquitos, frozen and overfried; burgers, dry bun, frozen and tasteless; beer, cold and delicious. The view was nice though.

We hustled over to the theater at Centum City where the Shinsegae Mall is located. Of course, all the movies of the day had been sold out for hours. We had no choice but to head to the fancy, amazing sauna inside the mall called SpaLand.

You pay about 16$ for four hour access to the dozens of hot rooms, hot pools, massage chairs and napping friendly recliners. Check here for a view into the Korea sauna. I was too busy enjoying myself to go back to the locker room and get my phone to take pictures. It’s the best one I’ve ever seen, not too crowded, clean and very relaxing.

We headed to Gwangalli Beach for our dinner burger at HQ Bar. Watching Liverpool and Man United fight to a 0-0 draw, we enjoyed these burgers much more, played some Connect Four and heard some kind of K-Pop girl group sing out the window.

Next day, Sunday, the movie I wanted to see, Hochelaga, a film about the history of Montreal and the natives who lived there when Jacques Cartier arrived with his band of religious zealots ready to Christianize the world. We arrived early for the 10 a.m. showtime and got tickets. A confusing movie for a fourteen year old unfamiliar with Canadian history, but good nevertheless. Burgered out, we grabbed a huge fish lunch by the ocean in the Jagalchi market. Perfect rainy day lunch with a cold Coke.

We walked off the fish playing in the rocking bowling alley, then wasted some time taking funny pictures in Busan’s Trick Eye Museum. It’s 10$ to take inappropriate or goofy photos, little pricey, but fun.