Fun days with Tanners and MAP are over. (Boo!! But thanks peeps for a great time.) The first day we met up in Seoul and caught up on each others biznasss. We went to eat at a traditional Korean family restaurant which was good – I order meat because oh many I was craving protein! Observation #1: Koreans are generally speaking super nice and considerate. The Korean woman at the restaurant went out of her way to show me how to eat my food because I had noooo idea what I was doing. After we walked around and then I  learnt a game that would be the obsession of the entire trip – a Korean gambling game called go stop using some hwatu cards. The game is tricky and fun, where you have to match cards that kind of match but not really plus a whole lot of other crazy rules. As in apparently takes 4 hands to understand, a lifetime to master.

The next day we super lucked out because apparently there was a big lantern parade happening for buddahs b-day. It was great that someone gave us the tip to go there. We got there around 1 and got to make our own lotus flower lanterns! Super fun. Then we walked around to all the other stalls - it was a carnival type environment. After we watched the lantern parade which was super awesome also. Then we headed to Busan playinggo stop` all of the way.

In Busan the first day was fun because we went to the shopping district – its fun and relatively cheap and cool stylish / cutesy asian type fashion. I had fun buying things – mostly a lot of big random shirts that can be totally worked in easily to a Pakistan wardrobe. So much good food in between!! The next day we went to the Korean Modern art museum which was good but mostly just ok because there was that much actual Korean modern art in it. At night we went to Tanner and MAPS local bar and played –  YOU　GUESSED it – go stop! Just have to say that Tanners has some ridiculous unbelievable luck in this game and basically ALWAYS wins. I think she`s cheating.

We also went to Spa City in Sentum City – basically its like a Korean style bathhouse type place. I was a little anxious about seeing all these naked Korean women but its was okay once you get used to it. Its fun because the female section has like lots of different tubs ranging from the ice cold 17 degrees to the insanely hot 49 degrees. The ideal situation is that you go from hot to cold hot to cold and we tried out best. Also go scrubbed down by the professional female scrubbers. Yuck! It was super gross how much dirt and skin that came off. Omg I think the scrubbing lady was disgusted but I was happy because she scrubbed a lot of my gross tan. At night we wen to see the Hyundae beach and the bridge there – I wonder if its named after the car company.

The next day we were all in the pre-preps from Buddahs bday. We went to a temple - i dont remember the name but its one of the places where they have some  crystals that supposedly appear when an englighted persons body is burnt (this enlightened person being the Indian Buddha.) That night I had the best meal ever which was an authentic Korean (although unsually veggie for Tanner and MAP) meal thanks to their friend May who invited us for dinner. The food was amazingly delicious – and then we played Go Stop at night . ;P My last day was the quintesential Korea expereince which included going to the Busan Giants game, eating Korean bbq the PROPER way and of course some Norebang! (aka karaoke).

Ok in Kyoto Japan now – more to report but thats gonna be from another day. Only 7 more days till Im back home. booo!