Christmas shopping in Busan

Sunday was Christmas shopping day for me.

After looking around for Christmas presents (ie. souveniers) in Ulsan for a few weeks, I decided that Ulsan sucks. So, I went to Busan on Sunday.
















I think I heard more Russian and Japanese in Busan than I did Korean. Here I am on "Russian Street". This used to be known as "Texas Street", because the Americans set up shops and hung out hear during and after the Korean war. Since then, they Americans have moved on (to Daegu, I guess), and the Russians have taken over.
















Russia meets Korea.
















Busan is a cool city. I like it. It's all korasho and all of that.
















Maybe I should learn some more Russian.
















Here's some good Russian:

VODKA!
















Vodka, vodka, vodka.
Courva, courva, courva.
Znos Drovia!
Korasho!
















It's a freakin' subway enterance! Busan has three subway lines now. They just opened a third line.
















This is what's known as a "highway". It's all high, and stuff.
















Here's a Russian ad on a bus stop in Korea.
















This picture was taken in December. Notice how green everything is here? If I was still in Canada, I'd be walking in two feet of snow now.
















Here's a cool Japanese souvenir shop that I found under the highway. They tried speaking Japanese to me first, even before trying Korean or English on me. Eventually, a girl came over to me and tried what little English she knew. She didn't really make it past "I'm fine, thank you". At least it was cute. We did have a little conversation in Japanese though. It went pretty much like this:

J-girl: "Do you speak Japanese?"
Me: "Iee, Nihongo desu" (No have Japanese) (probaby terrible grammar on my part, but she understood)
J-girl: *looks at me in complete shock*
J-girl (talking to her J-girl friends in J-language): "Wow, that really cute foreign guy told me that he can't speak Japanese IN Japanese!!! He's so smart and funny. I want to have beautiful ethnically mixed offspring with him. How do you say "copulate with me" in English?"
J-girl's friend #1: "I have no idea. He sure is smart and funny though. He's also sooo handsome! Let's all have his babies!"
J-girl's friend #2: "Great idea! How do we convey this to him in English?"
J-girl: "Maybe if I say "thank you" a lot, he'll be infinitly impressed by my English abilities and get the hint."
J-girl (talking to me again): "Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Me: "Arigato gozaimas" (thank you)
J-girl (thinking): (you're so smart and funny.)
Me: Bye-bye, arigato gozaimas.
J-girls, in unison: Arigato gazaimas!!!
















Russia Street again.
















The International Ferry Terminal. You can get to Japan from here, and hear "arigato gozaimas" ALL DAY LONG!
















More of Russia in Korea.
















It's stairs. Where do these lead to?
















A locked door. There seems to be an apartment complex behind this door.
















Oh well, I guess I'll just go back down.
















Jagalchi Market. It's a very, very large market. Many fish, veggies and random goods are to be found here.
















Some pigeons at the foot of Busan tower. I didn't bother to take any photos of the tower, the large bell, or of the Yi Sun Shin statue, because they exist elsewhere on this blog.
















A trendy shopping area.
















More of a trendy shopping area.
















Even more trendy shopping!!! What could be more exciting?

















How about making friends with a group of random high school guys that are heading back to Ulsan? A couple of them 'sort of' knew some English. We mainly just taught each other swear words in our respective languages. We had a middle-aged woman nearly dying of laughter in the seat in front of me. She must've thought I was smart, handsome and funny as well. Maybe she was from Japan.