Day 168: Beach Madness

We woke up this morning and packed up all our gear before heading out to catch the 11am ferry back to Busan. The ride was calm and scenic and we pulled into dock just before noon. We took taxis back to Busan Station and just before entering the station I actually ran into some friends! Also coming into the station were my friends Anne-Marie and Bernie - friends of Ailish who all live out in Shihung! The two girls were on their way to catch a ferry to Japan for their summer holiday and were about to buy tickets. Wow - small world running into them! Kinda funny cause I just ran into them last week at the Mud Festival!

While at the station Brian and Pauline decided that they wanted to head back to Seoul right away so they bought train tickets for the next train out and went their own way. Nick, Angele and myself decided that we wanted to hang out in Busan for the day so we went and did our own thing, after buying tickets for a much later train. We decided to go and hang out for the afternoon at Haeundae - Korea's most famous - and therefore most crowded - beach! Nothing could have prepared me for the sheer size of the crowds at that beach....

We taxied it there and had some lunch before throwing ourselves into the pit of human bodies on the sand! Haeundae is 1.25 km. long and is literally ALL UMBRELLAS! I kid you not - there are so many people on that beach you can barely see the sand!! There had to have been at least 50,000 people at this beach!! Wow! I've never seen anything like it before!! The beach is actually really nice and is just on the edge of town so it's surrounded by a wall of skyscrapers - hotels and apartments all vying for a piece of precious ocean view. This beach ain't cheap though! You have to rent out the umbrellas and lounge chairs and for us three it cost about $10 CDN *EACH*! Ouch! Still, it was worth it. The weather was hot and beautiful and it was cool to relax and people-watch. And on a beach this busy there's lots to look at!

After a few hours hanging out at Haeundae it was time to head back to the train station. We caught the 6 o'clock KTX and were whisked back up to Seoul. I then caught a bus back to Ilsan and was home just before 10:30pm. What a great week away!!! Definitely one of my most fun camping trips ever and I got to see some really beautiful scenery! Great company too, and we've even made plans already to go camping again this coming weekend! Sweet!!! With weather this good who can resist? I can't wait for another camping adventure exploring pockets (the few that remain) of Korean wilderness. Korea really is a very beautiful country!