Suddenly..I Remember My Last Summer Trip to Busan

Yes...we were Brand Communicator back then in 2012. I traveled a lot. Thanks to Korea's Council on National Branding. We were Koreans and Foreigners who happened to love traveling and telling stories about what do and see. So, last year's summer was one of the best trips we ever had. We went to Busan.

I don't know..why all of a sudden I miss my friends with whom I shared stories and memories we had last year. Guess..it's summer and then...I was like zapped into the flashback memories we had in Busan.  

Click here or on the pic. below to see what we did last year!

Well, summer + Busan: what a combination.

The Yacht trip: wow...the best highlight to taste the Best of Busan.

Busan: Family Trip (part 6)

Daejeongdae: An islet visible from an observatory deck on top of the cliff. The blue sky and ocean mesmerized anyone who would see it. The horizon seemed to get dispersed...

Mommy and her two daughters...at the very spot where most people would take picture whenever they visit this famous Daejeongdae...

Plus ..their Daddy, too..this time.

A breathtaking view..... 

Busan: Family Trip (part 3)

Haeundae Time. As I informed earlier, we were there at about 9 a m, so practically not many people were there. The parasols were empty...

As far as eyes could see.....lots of parasols with the same sponsors on top of them....were spread like mushrooms springing up from the sand...^^

The kids wanted to take a dip into the water....but...of course, we did not allow them to...since the reason as to why we were there was no other than to spend an hour or so...before attending our friends' wedding reception.^^

And..another reason as to why we were not into swimming was the fact that there had been a string attacks from the sea creatures like jellyfish...as caught by one of the coastguard that early morning.

Another interesting fact that I could not possibly ignore was the mere existence of coast guard who were taking in charge of the cleanliness of the whole beach. They were bringing along their own stick or canes to pick the scattered trash out of the beach..

Pose. Moms and the kids were all drenched in purple...^^

As for me, I was in black attire...^^, the kids seemed to enjoy being there...albeit not being allowed to swim^^

Walking towards the shore after circling around the area...

Pose for the 2nd time. Stop it right there..so as to capture the moment.

Again....^^ See how empty it was? well, the summer was about to end...and the water started to cool off ...that day...

Another activity not to be missed while playing around on the beach sand....^^: writing names on the sand...

EYRA^^.....to leave some traces of being there^^

After half an hour or so, we were walking up towards the subway station. On our way there, we were walking along the sidewalk just right beside the beach where a string of hotel chains dotted the street.

We found on an interesting outdoor advertisement...

...and a laughing pig....made out of wood or steel ( not sure)...which simply tickled us on our way to the station. A small but noticeable spark that we found it too interesting to be missed... ^^

and...guess what? This is a bank. ^^ So futuristic-looking architecture, eh?

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.....