Busan morning on the beach

Annyeong haseo.

Had a good night last night, which for me, in a strange place, is rather unusual. I woke up once at about 3am local time but was able to read until relaxing enough to go back to sleep.

Woke up for good at 6am...the room was too light and I longed for either pair of those darn eyepatches. But, I figured I was burning daylight, so I got up and went for a walk along a nice walking trail they have set up along the beach. Here are some pictures I took. First, here's a daytime shot of the same view from the room in the Hotel Homer:

It is, as you can predict from the haze, very humid here. Much tougher than even in Indiana. In fact, thanks to the 23-degree Celsius reading of the AC in the Homer, my camera lense kept fogging up for the first part of the walk until it warmed up.

Here's an outside shot of the hotel, which is (in case I did not mention it) very nice.

Last night, as Soyoung and her sister drove me in, she pointed out that the buildings in the distance housed floor upon floor of raw-fish restaraunts...although I'm sure that there are differences in each of the establishments, to me it seemed like having a McDonalds stacked on a Wendy's atop of a Burger King and then a Hardee's. That wouldn't happen in the States, and I had never realized how much our views on marketing & competition are due to the fact that we have plenty of real-estate to put space between our competitors. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

Oh, and as if there was any doubt, Starbucks is here too. I was quite surprised by another difference between Busan and the States, though. It was 7am and this Starbucks was locked up tight. [Of course, I've since been back for a double-tall iced latte].

There were a lot of people out exercising along the walkway: runners, walkers, several people on bikes. So, I did not feel out of place by picking up the pace to get a little bit of a cardio workout in. Here's a nice ocean-front scene:

And a shot I like to call "Baywatch Busan" as the lifegaurds get ready for a day on the beach:

I did, of course, eventually get off the walking path and get on the beach myself. Here's proof:

One of the men who was out exercising eventually introduced some baseball swings in his workout as he hit rocks from the beach back into the South Sea:

Today, it's off to tour Kyungsung University, if I understand correctly. More later.

Aneyung-hi gaseo.