"Sunday morning, rain is falling"

“Sunday morning, rain is falling.” I’m up before the alarm and the wake-up call that Aidan (!) has placed for us. Also up before the 6:40 AM call from Master Moore reminding us to bring all of our luggage down with us before we eat breakfast. Another fantastic breakfast at the Shilla hotel: I get smart this time and order coffee for Aidan too, so that I don’t run out of caffeine as quickly as I did the day before. The bus leaves at 8 AM sharp as we have a 9:50 flight and the airport is at the other end of the island, an hour’s drive away. Our drive to the airport takes us through the downtown section of the island, and it surprises me how populated Jeju really is – I guess we’ve been hitting the periphery of the bustling town center up until now.

We make it to the airport with plenty of time – and thanks to some baggage shifting and employment of our extra duffle bag, we don’t go over the 44kg per luggage piece limit. Airline travel within Korea is very easy – security is present, but not a huge hassle like at LAX. Travel with a large tour group, while at some times constricting, is more stress-free than I anticipated. Surprisingly, I’m quite happy to relinquish the planning and control reins to someone else. Our tour guides are very adept in herding us through tourist attractions, restaurants and airports. And it’s quite pleasant to walk in and have someone else take over ALL logistics. As a mom, this definitely felt like a vacation, and not a business trip which most/all vacations feel like when travelling with children – (Modern Family.) I managed to get ahold of Brian at the airport – and coincidentally *he* was at the airport too, getting ready to ship Julia and Edwin up to Lake Tahoe for the week. Deciding to go on this trip to Korea necessitated some pretty detailed logistics in order to leave 3 kids at home: the younger 2 could be shipped to my sister for a week (taking her kid count to 5! thank you Hilary!); Colin needed to be home due to daily football practice, which then needed a ride every day across town (thank you Noli!); rides to and from the airport for me and Aidan (thank you Mom!); on-line summer school set up for Colin etc… the list goes on. Which is maybe another reason I enjoyed being on a tour – no planning to do and nothing to arrange for 9 WHOLE DAYS. We had just enough time at the airport to pick up a few postcards and souvenir keychains for Julia and Edwin. The keychains are replicas of the “grandfather” stone statues that are found all over the island.

Landing to *heat* and light rain in Busan, (or Pusan, depending on which sign you read – a confusing practice here in Korea) Korea’s second largest city, and a huge shipping port. The armada of colorful shipping containers in the waters around Busan was quite spectacular – like nothing I’ve ever seen – especially from the air. We boarded new buses and headed downtown for lunch at the harbor. Lunch is in the 5th floor of a building by the marina and host to HUGE seafood market. We had a bit of time before the meal started, so we toured the fish market. The “live” side of the market was a better show than a visit to any aquarium: you could get up close and personal with the octopus, squid, tiger sharks, sting ray, fish of all kinds, and “sea worms” that looked too much like a certain male anatomy part – and had everyone talking about them. The fish stalls were mostly run by families of women (perhaps the men did the catching?) and these commendable women looked like they spend long hours in their respective stalls. It did not look like a particularly easy life. As curious tourists, we were greeted with smiles, and even a few inquiries of where we were from. When we answered, “Los Angeles” or “California” they all grinned and exclaimed, “Oh! USA!” Not the “American” label like in Europe, but “USA.” I thought that this slight identification difference was interesting. Another buffet style lunch awaited us upstairs. In addition to rows of prepared food, this place had gas grills at all the tables – and a refrigerated display case full of meat to choose and pick from. How great is that??? Carnivore heaven.

Next up was Busan Tower, a large tower overlooking the city. We went up for the view and had it been clear, we could have seen Japan’s closest island. But the threatening rain kept the clouds and fog low and visibility even lower. After our trip up, we posed for our first group shot in front of a dragon statue (“Tae Ryong “ translates to constantly growing dragon) and learned how to take a picture in Korea: “Hana, Dool, Sett…Kimchi!” From Busan tower, we headed to Gyeongju – the old capital during the Shilla period – about a 2 ½ hour drive. About ½ hour of the drive was blissful peace and the other 2 hours were filled with the strained strains of Karaoke. Each bus was equipped with a sound system and mounted TV screen. Usually the sound system was taken over by the tour guides to provide us facts about the customs and culture that we were visiting. [And here is where I will state that our bus had the best tour guide… Kristin was fantastic!] Today, however, the microphone was put to far more ear-spliiting use. We did learn that Karaoke on the bus wasn’t exactly legal, and if caught, our bus driver could be fined. Happily, a police sighting stopped a particularly screechy version of “Back in Black” – temporarily, of course. Aidan took his turn on the microphone for a Peter Brady-esque version of “Hello, Goodbye” – a song he became familiar with thanks to lots of Glee watching this spring.

The drive from Busan to Gyeongju was beautiful and as we approached Gyeongju, I finally got to see the Asia that I had pictured in my head for so many years. Rice fields, buildings with slanted, curved tiled roofs, and plenty of green farmland. Stunningly beautiful – and it felt like we were travelling back in time. Dinner was beef stew, upstairs at a restaurant where downstairs was traditional cross-legged on the floor seating. The Hite beer was flowing at the meal, and a stop at a convenience store next to the restaurant yielded more and the first “Coke Light” purchase of the trip. Off to the hotel around the other side of the lake – many resort hotels lined the lake as well as a few amusement parks (one named California) Our hotel room had A/C a la Italia (so really, not very good or strong) and the only place truly cool in the hotel was the elevator (which I consider riding up and down for an hour just to cool off.)

After quick clean-ups and showers (yes to another bidet and complimentary robes; no to the niceness of the rooms…we have been SPOILED by the Shilla hotel on Jeju…because these rooms are actually pretty nice) down to the bowling alley in the basement for Aidan and the Karaoke bar for me (= Glutton. For. Punishment) as it has proven so popular on the bus. The Karaoke bar in the hotel is closed (Sunday and all…) so we head offsite to a random hole in a wall about 5 minutes’ drive away-via hotel shuttle van. There is some communication barrier when our group arrives –which improves slightly when the next group joins us, as one of them speaks a little Korean. I will not go into many details here about the evening to protect the innocent. Let’s just say that there was much “singing” – Soju and beer consumption, and a little bit of pants’ splitting jumpy dancing. We left mostly intact, collectively down 200,000Wan. I Know!