Spooky, Scary Halloween (Fall 2013 in Korea, Part 3)

Over Halloween weekend we went to Busan, just as we did last year.  We got into Busan on Friday night, and since Daniel’s girlfriend missed her train, Daniel and I just drank at our hostel until she arrived around 11 p.m.  We were staying in the Haeundae Beach area, which wasn’t exactly preferable, but certainly not bad.  Haeundae Beach is just very far from where most of the Halloween celebrating was going to be.  After Anna arrived, we made our way to the different bars in the Haeundae area like Wolfhound, Thursday Party, and Fuzzy Navel.  We met up with Max and his friend from Busan.  We ended up going to a noraebang until about 4:00 a.m. 

The next day, we went to Wolfhound for a proper English breakfast and bloody marys (for me...how am I the only one of my friends in Korea that absolutely loves bloody marys is beyond me!).  Then we walked along the beach for a couple hours until it was time to get ready for fireworks.  We put on our onesie costumes (I was a bear, Daniel was a bumblebee, and Anna was a pink kangaroo).  We endured all of the stares and laughs of the Koreans on the street and on the subway.  Most Koreans would never think about dressing up in a costume in public unless EVERYONE else was doing it.  Koreans don’t really like to draw attention to themselves, which is just a result of the collectivist culture here.

Like last year, Busan’s fireworks festival (the biggest fireworks show of the year in Korea, if my thinking is correct) fell on the same weekend as Halloween.  Last year the fireworks were canceled because of rain, but this year the weather was good.  Unfortunately, we were late getting to the beach that had the fireworks show, so we didn’t have a good view.  After the fireworks (which lasted around 45 minutes), we waited until the crowds dispersed and then found Jayeon.  Jayeon was also in Busan leading a tour for her company.  The four of us had drinks and food together by the beach, and then we took the subway to the Kyungsung University area where most of the Halloween partying was scheduled to take place. 

Just like last year, foreigners in costume lined the streets of the Kyungsung neighborhood and populated its bars and clubs.  As we arrived to the area, I heard someone shout my name from a window on the second floor of one of the windows.  I looked up and sure enough, it was one of my friends who moved from Daejeon to Busan.  His name is Alex and we were in the same orientation together when we first arrived to Korea.  He and a girl he was on a date with hung out with us for a while, but Alex isn’t exactly the party type, so he dipped out pretty quickly, haha.  The four of us bar and club hopped all night.  I estimate that we probably went to five or six different bars and clubs in addition to drinking in the streets (which is perfectly legal here in Korea).  Finally, we ended up in a noraebang around 3:00 a.m. and we stayed there until 5:00 a.m.  What a day and a night!  I thought we had just as good of a time as we did last year, if not more!