Dynamic Busan: (Part 38) The Highlights...

Busan....Busan...Busan....It's Marina City. Drenched in the shower of lights from the towering sky scrappers as the backdrop of our picture, we were so excited to there. Along with friends from Korea and  many other nationalities, we were there as part of our visit to the 'Dynamic Busan' Only Busan Fam Tour arranged by the Korea Brand Communicator and Busan City Government.

The leap of Joy and Exhilaration at the Nurimaru APEX House. 

We'd figured out a way to expel and release the tumultuous energy inside us...

JUMP into the air...

Another pic. I'd like to put down on this blog, the very same spot and time where we were still at Marina City, Busan. ( A must-visit spot for everyone to enjoy the night view of Busan)

A mimicking pose for one of the famous David La Chapelle's works of arts staged at BEXCO.

A healing pose at the Taejeongdae. Why not pose for a while as if I was contemplating on a big rock overlooking the ocean...

A Memoir with friends at Taejeongdae...

A group photo in front of the Gijang Etiquette School. 

A Shaky cam of me on top of a mountain ....overlooking... Busan's night view...

At the station. before departing to Seoul on board KTX.

Dynamic Busan: (part 37)..Our last program in Busan

The last program we were attending was to meet the city mayor of Busan. As I was approaching the city hall I was overwhelmed by how huge the complex was. I did not expect to see such a big hall where ( as it seemed to be) lots of other citizen activities were right there, too. So, I guess it was quite an interesting revelation to know this. I saw citizens the likes of children and senior citizens making their whereabouts in and out the city hall. Quite a view!

Upon entering the ceremony hall where we were about to meet the mayor ( the vice mayor ), we took a time off to have a kind of pre-ceremony so as to make the event go smooth.

The main idea of the ceremony was to meet up with the mayor and had a kind of official appointment ceremony for us who turned out to be --now--the official Busan Buddy Program. We have officially become Busan Buddy Tour. ^^ Wow great.

Off we went to .....Busan Train Station to board on Seoul-bound KTX.

The last snap of picture in front of the station. A nice fountain right in front of station.

We collected our luggage and stuffs...

Waiting to board...

I Love Busan...see the SNSD's advertorial banner up there? ^^

On board the KTX that took us back to Seoul...

Dynamic Busan: (part 36): Makgeolli

Continuing my previous post on Makgeolli making experience. 

After we mixed all of the ingredients, we put them ito a bottle jar and ready to put some water into it..

Some teams were still busy mixing the makgeolli ingredients..

And some were already on their last part of making the makgeolli: the water's inside the jar and what we needed to do was to close it tightly...

and they would look like this.

Now ...back to the rice wine cupcakes again. See the shimmering moisture sprouting from the bamboo oven?

Once again..this is what they looked like. the texture itself is quite traditional-looking cake, right?

worth to try.

I'm a bit numb of having to stand....for a couple of hours...so why not take a chance of putting on a jibsin or Korean traditional slippers.

We finished our experiences of making rice wine cupcakes and makgeolli with a smile.

This was the picture I took just outside the very place where we made our cupcakes. It really was rural, right? But with a small touch of putting a coach overlooking the view, what a life! It was such a nice way to spend an evening there...^^

Dynamic Busan (part 35): 술빵 & 막걸리

We were transported to a small village just outside Busan to experience the making of Makgeolli (Korean traditional rice wine) and wine-cake (well, I do not know how to translate the 술빵). 

We arrived at the place...

The first thing that we noticed was how fully packed with traditional coking utensils this place was. It was a feast to the eyes to see soooo many cooking wares that I did not even know what their names were. 

See the ingredients and the cooking wares on the table? we were divided intro several groups to make our own 술빵 (sulpang) and of course 말걸리 (makkeolli). 

First: the 술빵. We had to mix flour, a cup of rice wine, shredded pear, and carrot and a cup of water...and...then we mixed mixed mixed them up all together... (see the spoons?)

After it was done, we took a spoonful of the mixture into a cup and put a nut on top of it.

what's next? we put them on a bamboo-made pan and put them on the stove for about 30 minutes or so.

Waiting for the rice-wine cup-cakes to get done....

While we already put our mixture on the stove, some groups were still busy making theirs. So, I could take a picture of how they looked like before being heated. See the cups? each cup was just put right on top of it. It's a garnish--- I guess.

Since we did not want to leave an leftover, we might as well use up all of the ingredients and the mixture to make as many cup-cakes as possible.

Then...while waiting for the cakes, another activity was........making makgeolli. Korean traditional rice-wine. See the big round stuff there? It's a gosh.I forgot what' it was...but it was called 'ragi' in Indonesian, or a fermentation factor in makgeolli^^ 

See the rice up there? we use cooked rice (and some wheat) I guess...and we'd put them together..

First, we got to crush the 'ragi' so as to make them into smaller bits which later on be added into the cooked rice and put /mixed some water into it.

As we were making the makgeolli, the rice-wine cupcakes we made were already done. 

They looked like this.

Dynamic Busan: part 34 (bye bye Etiquette School)

After a one-night stand ( I mean...stay) at the school, we finally got our stuffs and packed them...ready to board the bus again onward Busan. This is the hallway in between rooms where we stayed for the night. Rooms between boys and girls are simply separated by this alley. Oh, the fun part was that we had a common shared bathroom (of course boys and girls being separated), what I meant by it being 'fun' was because..it was my first time of having to share a bathroom. Really quite an experience in itself^^

The facade of the room where we stayed in. It fully accommodated up to 10 people ( I guess), but luckily there were only 6 of us in each room which was very convenient. Surely, this is a Korean style to sleep on the floor where the heating system (called ondol) keep the temperature of the room warm during winter. But since it was already summer...we did not use it. Instead, AC came along.^^

Took a snap of the map in front of the school. It did elaborate the where-about and what kinds of facilities the school had. Unfortunately, I did  not have that much time to take a closer look at the map, though.

Ready to continue our journey to Busan to meet the vice mayor of Busan city without whom we would never be invited to experience Busan and all of its wonder.

Follow along on my other posts on this blog.

Dynamic Busan: part 33 (Hanbok @ Etiquette School)

After a seriously tedious array of hanbok preparation, we finally got ourselves in our hanbok. Well, as seen in the picture, the girls got pretty colorful outfits (hanboks) while the guys just wore plain light blue ones..with hats as their accent.

The royal wedding hanbok was worn by our friend who was lucky enough to put it on. Oh, did I mention that it took time to put it on? 

As for the guys, the hanbok looks simple. Yet, don't get fooled by its appearance. We were wearing layers by layers inner clothes that built up into a fully worn hanbok.

Apart from simply wearing hanbok, we also learned how to behave when we are wearing hanbok, e.g. what we can and cannot do, and when to bow and how to bow...or to greet.

NOt like what the boys were doing at the moment..They were a bit tired that they just spread their legs on their hambok, while the girls were busy practicing their part of greeting and giving respect to elders.

It looked so much easy on TV, but when we do it by ourselves,,,so, when we finally got the hang of it, we managed to do it accordingly.

My friend, Jamaito and his so-called princess...^^

  

Wait..is this Jamaito with another woman? 

We could not sa more...^^ IT was so fun to try our chance to get to know others, too...though

Me with my teacher --for a day --who was kindly enough to teach us what to and not to do while wearing hanbok.....