Saturday part 1: Indian food and Busan Tower

** The next 2 posts are missing some pictures because I am waiting for some good ones from other people. But I decided to go ahead and post them, then add another post with the missing pictures later. **

On Saturday mid-morning, a series of texts went out to the group planning to go to Busan debating on if we should go, what we were going to do etc. because it was cold. The majority decided we still wanted to go but would potentially do indoor things instead. Jackie, our organizer, likes surprises, so she planned out the day and didn't really tell us what we were going to do.

A group of 7 of us met at the bus terminal shortly after noon, got tickets and rode the bus to Busan. It was packed and the guy next to me fell asleep and snored on and off during the trip. It was quick until we got close to the city where we sat in traffic for a bit. When we got to the terminal, we dropped into Diaso so Jackie could get a few things. We attempted to meet up with one of her friends, but directions got misinterpreted and we ended up at 2 different restaurants. Everyone was hungry so we decided to just meet up later.

We went to an Indian place called Bombay Spices. They had only been open for 10 days, although a different Indian restaurant was there right before. Oh well. Our waitress, whose name was Linda, was super sweet. She's a student at Silla University in Busan. She's from China and speaks Korean and English as well. She actually had to leave after taking our order to teach Korean to other Chinese students. Apparently there are now students from 40 some-odd countries in her department.

The starting 7 - Todd, Meg, me, Jackie, Linda (our waitress from China), Amanda, Kathryn, Laura

We ordered a ton of food, sort of by accident, and it was slow in getting to us because there is only 1 chef in the back. It was decent though. I had chicken takki, which is spiced rubbed and grilled, naan bread and I split samosas with Amanda, a newish girl who I met on the street about a week ago. The naan was really good, the rest was average.

My lunch - Naan and chicken takki (with pickled onions)

After lunch, we found Jackie's friend Conrad and his mom who is visiting. We all hopped on the subway and went closer to the downtown area. This is where we started a running joke about how it felt like we were little kids on a field trip because every time we got off the subway to transfer or leave, someone counted to make sure everyone was there. Then we walked for a bit and went up a series of escalators that were all under arbors of lights. It was very pretty but the pictures don't capture it right.

It looks like I don't have a neck because I have on a huge scarf and am shrugging my shoulders.

Light statue at the bottom of the steps when you get off the escalators

At the top was Jackie's surprise destination: Busan Tower. The tower is in the middle of a "park" called Yongdu-san Park. This translates to Dragon's Head Mountain because the surrounding mountains look like a dragon rising from the water (apparently - I didn't see it).

The tower and a statute of Yi Sun Shin (the inventor of turtle ships and a brave warrior) and the bell pavilion from the base area

Dragon statue at the bottom of the tower

Bell

Now, most of you know my (ir)rational fear of tall buildings, so this wasn't high on my list of things to do. But I decided to suck it up and not say anything. I'm glad I made that decision because even though I had a couple of queasy moments, most of it was fine.At the base of the tower, Jackie told us to get the combination ticket. It was only 5000 won so none of us complained about that. Then we went into the tower. There was a quilt exhibition and some of them were really cool.

This is where you go into the tower

One of my favorite quilts - although to me it looks more like early American life than Korean. I'm pretty sure they never churned butter here.

Another fav - this was even more colorful in person

Another newish girl named Meg and I got cut off from the group because we didn't fit in the same elevator and had to wait. The elevator shows you how high you're going up and I had a brief drop stomach moment when the doors opened. Luckily, the design of the building made me comfortable. I think it's also because there are no outdoor platforms on that tower. The tower was built both for observation and as a television tower. It is 120m tall and was completed in 1973.

View of downtown Nampo-dong from the tower

View of the harbor

Tiles all along the wall inside the tower

North side of the tower

After we walked around the observation area, we took the elevator back down into the gift shop area where we found out the second part of our ticket: an exhibition of musical instruments from around the world. I have no idea if that is a permanent or temporary piece, but it was still fun to see. The bottom floor has stringed instruments and some wind instruments. It is amazing to me that people have basically developed the same instruments (although obviously slightly different) no matter which continent they're on. Every culture has some form of violin, guitar, flute, maraca and drum.

Cellos and nutcrackers

Guitars and the like from around the world

The upper level has all the percussion instruments which you are allowed to play (well some of them). It was fun getting to bang on drums, even though the ones at the Seoul drum festival were a little better.

Me and some giant drums. The one in the center behind me looks like it was made out of bark and skins.

This is a slit drum...and a person

Meg played drums with the curator

This picture should be horizontal, but you get the picture. It's a Cambodian bell ring. It had a very beautiful sound.

Here are some colorful Zambian maracas

The the oddest instrument to me, the scissors. I didn't know I was playing an instrument for years! These are also huge.

I don't remember what this was called. It was fun to play though. The gourds made a cool plonking sound.

When we left the museum, we met up with another group of Jinju people who decided to do other things during the day. Jackie showed us that she had bought locks for us at her Diaso stop earlier. We all signed one of three locks, then locked them together and put them on the fence. It was cute idea and I'm glad she did it.

Carolyn, Todd and I signed one lock

Me on a heart

A display of more lock around the tower plaza

After the locks and the tower, we decided to go to dinner. At this point there were 15 of us. Two decided to go back to Jinju because they had to take buses to smaller cities and didn't want to risk getting stuck. So the 13 of us when to a Thai place and that's where part 2 begins...