Happy New Year!

If how you spend New Year’s Day is any indication of how you’re going to spend the rest of your year, I’m in for a pretty amazing one.

I woke up feeling a little groggy from the festivities the night before, but in a good mood. A few of the girls and I went to a Korean Grill then out to our usual watering hole to ring in the New Year. The night was full of dancing and none of us wanted it to end. We finally called it a night though and all went our separate ways.

The next day one of my girlfriends and I decided to wake up early and explore Busan. We started the day off at our neighbourhood gimbap shop for some fuel before we headed out. I had chamchi gimbap  which is tuna, pickled radish, carrots, spinach, spam, sesame leaf, fish cake, and mayo wrapped in rice and a seaweed covering. It may sound a little odd, but it’s an addictively balanced and satisfying meal after you get use to it. From there we went on the subway to Haeundae (one of the beaches here) and bummed around. We went to one of the cafe’s that overlooks the ocean and each splurged on a cafe mocha (they run about 6,000 won here) and also split a blueberry cheese cake. It tasted nothing like cheesecake though which was disappointing. It was more like whipped cream with a layer of blueberry jelly on top. The weather on the other hand was warm enough to sit out on the patio so we just took in the sights and sounds of the people and cars going by.

We had no idea what we wanted to do next but we knew we wanted to do something fun. That’s when it came to us, why not fly a kite on the beach! We went to a store not far from the cafe. I think I’ve mentioned before that most of the stores here have everything you can possibly imagine and this store was no exception. The man that ran it looked like he was 105 and had a smile from ear to ear. After some good acting he understood what we were looking for – and said as plain as day “Oh!... .Kite” I guess we should have started with saying the word “Kite” instead of making fools of ourselves first. From there we took a cab to another, less crowded, beach. We were pleasantly surprised to see we weren’t the only ones to think of flying a kite. We must have been out there for a few hours at least. When we were done kiting, we walked to the end of the beach where there was a trail that went up a hill and over looked the ocean. The waves were giant too so that’s all we could hear as we were walking up and down the beach. It was honestly the perfect day for it as you can see from the pictures. When the sun started to go down we decided to come back... but not home, not yet anyways.

I don’t know about you but when I think of New Years I always think about Chinese food, so what better way to end our day with a Chinese feast! We went to a Chinese restaurant close to home. It was hidden away on the second floor of a building, like most places here. I had spring rolls and sweet and sour pork. It was delicious and tasted not unlike the Chinese food you’d have in Canada. I was absolutely stuffed and loving life. We still didn’t want to call it a say yet though so we decided to go to our usual watering hole (the same one we had celebrated at the night before) and got a round of drinks to sip on as we played some cards. I finally found someone that loves cards just as much as I do! The pub is great too cause its owned by foreigners that don’t mind you sitting around as long as you want – even without drinking your faces off. The owner actually lived in Halifax for 6 years a while back so it always feels kinda homie there. After we both decided to call it a night, I slept like a baby and dreamt the rest of my year turns out just as great!