Walking and Hiking Tours of Busan

On Sunday morning, we went to the gym and then met up with Wayne from Toronto, whom we had not seen for a while.  We had curry with him. On Monday I took it easy at the gym, and called people for Mother's Day. On Tuesday , I went to the gym for one hour in the morning to do sit-ups (600), push-ups, and stretching.  Then I went in to sub a grade 3/4 class.  After work, I went back to the gym to do one hour of cardio, a back/arms workout, and then Carol and I did a body-pump class. On Wednesday , I was back in the gym for 1 hour in the morning to do sit-ups (600 crunches), and stretching.  My arms were too sore for push-ups.  Then I subbed a class for the day, again.  In the late afternoon, I taught ESL to the school's security guards.  Then we went to the Librarian, Shelly's birthday party at T.J.'s, not far from our house.  I had the chicken, while Carol had a monster burger. Thursday was a public holiday here, so we went to  Coffe...

PAPUA (FORMERLY KNOWN AS IRIAN-JAYA), IN INDOSNEIA, NOT PAPPUA NEW GUNIEA (PNG)  Carol had two weeks off for Easter, so we went to Papua.  The flight took about six hours (including a stop-over in Makkassar, Suluwesi for one hour, where we enjoyed a nice break in the business class lounge, as my ANZ MasterCard granted us free access to their lounge!!).  We landed in Sentani, a suburb of Jayapura, and hung out at Lake Sentani, while we waited for our next flight to Wamena, in the Baliem Valley. We took a public taxi to get to the lake, and all the passengers and driver were of Melanesian decent (same as Australian Aboriginals), and with the reggae music playing, I felt like I was in Jamaica, and not Indonesia!! When we landed in Wamena, we were greeted by a Dani Tribal Warrior, in the airport, wearing his traditional costume!!  A guide, named, Martinus, met us and helped show us around town, including stops at various hotels.  We settled in and ate dinner, whil...

Hi, Some of yous have been asking about what Carol and I did for our anniversary.  Here goes. I had been trying to find a nice hotel package for about a week.  I found a good deal at the Nong-Shim Hotel, which included two nights and use of the spa and gym. We got fruit too, since it was our anniversary.  On Saturday, we checked-in and had a few drinks and almonds, while chatting.  Then had dinner in the German Beer Garden.  We had German Country sausages and a really good pizza.  Of course, we had some micro-brew, too.  There was a live band from Bulgaria playing.  They sang a song for us. On Sunday, we went for a hike and took a gondola ride. After that we went to the spa, which had over 20 different baths, such as a grapefruit bath, a yellow sand bath, and salt water baths.  Then we went to one of the hotel restaurants for a wine buffet (24$U.S.)  We had 3 bottles (2 white, one red), lots of sushi, seafood, BBQ beef,...

This small, Italian, and French restaurant is located in a very quiet neighborhood. After a hectic week of teaching, the French and Italian classical music and décor are very relaxing. The chef-owner studied Italian cooking while in England and Italy.  All of the pasta served at Ravioli’s is homemade, and every meal comes with fresh, hot Italian bread. My friend ordered the special of the day, lasagna verdi bolognese (7000 won) which wasn't great. The other special was a spinach cannelloni, made of spinach pasta, filled with cheese, and vegetables, and covered with a tomato sauce, which was to die for! (7000 won). I ordered the ravioli for 6500 won. Pasta pockets filled with smoked salmon, served under a tasty tomato sauce and scrumptious vegetables. It was accompanied with three potatoes fried in garlic and herb butter.  Ravioli’s serves spaghetti with seafood, meat and vegetables, cool vinaigrette, Neapolitan, or béchamel sauce (white sauce). The waitress told us th...

Uncle Lee (phone # 515-4701) Directions: Get off at the Kuso-dong subway station, exit on the west side, turn right, and go all the way to the end of the street, and turn left. Go up that street, until you are at the top of the hill, and turn left at the traffic light. Uncle Lee is on the left-hand side, second floor, with a bull's head in the sign. The buses that stop in front of uncle lee's are 21, 29, 29-1, 49-1, 51, 51-1, 80, 100, and the 301. Come on down and bring your hungry heifers to Uncle Lee's so-ko-gi buffet. For only 5500 won, you'll sit down to an all you can eat meat buffet. For the amount of food you will eat here, you could easily pay triple or more. Here’s a rare treat: you cook at your table! Uncle Lee and his wife are friendly, and the decor is warm and cozy. You can pick up some kal-bi, sam-gup-sal, o-ri-ko-gi, so-kop-chang, bul-ko-gi, dwae-ji, dwae-ji-ko-gi, as well as bean paste soup, rice, garlic, leafs, plenty of dwen-jang (bean paste sau...

Last Saturday night and Sunday morning (97/8/7), I ate at a (Pal-u hang-yang) Buddhist monk's dining ceremony in So-myon. The organizer, Jay Oh, invited foreigners, so they could see how monks eat every night. Most of the Koreans there were experiencing this for the first time as well. The night started off with the monk, Shin-san, explaining to everyone how the evening's meal would proceed. Everyone there was nervous, including me, because the rules seemed so complex. I soon realized that this form of eating is in reality very simple, indeed. We then broke for about half an hour, and at around 11:30pm, we sat down to eat. We had a special way we were supposed to hold our bowls, a way to serve the food (in a buffet manner) and we were not supposed to make any noise, not even to hear ourselves chew, because this would take us out of the meditative state of mind. The monk seemed to be really intrigued that there were some foreigners present, and was keen as to make sure that ...

Note from the present : "Man, where have the times gone?  Nearly 21 years ago a boy wrote some articles for The Expatriate (The Expat) Magazine.  21 years later, I'm back at it, with the Busan Beat. Let's enjoy this first blast from the past". This is the first in a series of restaurant reviews that I am happy to be able to print. Read them and enjoy. Thanks, Mike, for a great job and a great service. In the reviews we use Mike’s scientifically validated rating system about which entire doctoral thesis have been written and assorted murders and suicides have been committed over. The  Rating System : 5* You  MUST  go there, it’s  GREAT ! 4* Delicious 3* The place serves it’s purpose. 2* HORRIBLE , don’t go. 1* ONLY IF YOU ENJOY PUKING! This month’s target: NYX & NOX Restorbar Phone: 256-8000  NYX & NOX Restorbar is located near the Nampodong Subway station. While inside the station, turn left when you see the City Hall sign...