The more I visit Busan, the more I like it...plus, terrorizing Miryang on two wheels!

Last weekend it was time to say goodbye to my old friend, the Canon G9. I've had it for about two years (after my G7 was stolen), and it's performed flawlessly. But, with Canon's introduction of the S100, I had to upgrade.

I found a buyer for the camera in Busan, a nice American girl, Danielle.

On the way to the bus terminal to go to Busan...gingko biloba trees losing the last of their leaves on a beautiful Saturday morning:

We met up, chatted for a bit about cameras and Korea when I looked out of the window of the restaurant where we met and whom should I see walking down the street, but my old pal Rachael. So, I bid adieu to Danielle and decided to follow Rachael around for no other reason than it was a beautiful day, I had nothing to do and I was in Busan...plus she's pretty spiffy company.

After she ran off to do her own thing I decided to head to Nampo-dong, the shopping district of Busan to poke my nose into some camera stores and wait for it to get dark, because apparently Nampo gets all lit up at night with Xmas stuff. Well, guess what happened at one of the camera stores? I bumped into my chum Richard. I guess I've been in Korea for a long time when I go to a different city and keep randomly bumping into friends...Richard is a huge photo nut as well (and a Canon guy to boot!), and his plans for the rest of the day were exactly what I had planned: Namely, to go to Busan's Yongdusan Park and waste some time up on the hill before it got dark, then take pictures of pretty lights at Nampo-dong.

Koreans love towers...fine by me, I think they're neat too...tower at the top of the park:

Love locks along the base of the tower...also popular in Korea...and fun with the 50 1.8:

A couple of old Korean guys doing what old Korean guys do best: play this cool little board game with black and white marbles and talk loudly on cellphones:

After that, we headed down the hill and checked out "Texas Street," which is actually the Russian district of Busan...complete with shops selling old Soviet film cameras, Russian writing and really, really scary-looking hookers. Pharmacy:

Check out the badass cop cars we get in Korea...

After that, we headed to Nampodong, where it was really crowded, so I didn't get any decent pics...but I thought this was kind of cool...meeting of cultures...

And Richard's Canon 5D Mark II with the 24-70L f2.8...taken with my trusty little 50 1.8 :)

And on the way home...I love public transportation in Korea:

The next day, I texted my chum Raines and we saddled up and headed to Miryang...we have both been there, but never with bikes, so we figured why not. The small city (about 100,000 people) has two rivers running through it, and both rivers are lined with neato bike paths we were hoping to ride. Somehow, we managed to completely miss all of that. Yup...we're that talented. We did, however, have a great time riding around town and making friends with the locals.

At a park still under construction I found some fun stuff to ride:

Raines and I also chatted with some kids, reminding us of how nice it is to live in a country where all sorts of paranoia have not made normal, innocent, carefree human interaction nearly impossible. We were in a park (part playground, as you can see from the picture above), and 3 girls, probably 5-10 years old, approached us to say hello...we ended up joking around with them, talking to them about where they were from, and generally having a ton of laughs and a genuinely great time talking to them in a mix of rudimentary English and Korean. In the end, Raines and I kept out-doing ourselves, giving the girls high-5s, then high-10s, and finally...high-15s.

All in all a fun time interacting with the locals...one that at home would have gotten us yelled at, lynched and possibly pepper-sprayed by the cops.

We kept on riding, finding a cool little city park with tons of exercise equipment, a mini city (little paved streets complete with lights, signs, etc where kids can ride their bikes and pretend to be cars...so of course we had to do it, ending in a crash at an intersection - in true Korean fashion - us yelling at each other, exchanging information and going our separate ways).

Raines paying up for the damage he clearly caused:

Another thing they love in Korea is blasting music or talk shows in parks...I'm not one for the talk shows (not just because I don't understand it, but because it's kind of annoying to have to listen to them yammer on when you go to a park to find some peace and quiet), but I kind of like the music, which is usually classical of some sort. Well, in Miryang, they were playing actual country music. No idea what was up with that, but it was the perfect background music for two idiotic white 30-year-olds doing tricks on their bicycles...check it out...I jumped over my backpack at speeds approaching that of light!!!

Note that I had my rear light on. Safety first.

And that wrapped up my weekend! In the coming days and weeks, I have a ton of stuff happening...Rachael is going to leave us for about a week and a half to visit her family back in Yank-land (*sniff*), but she'll return with a new camera (S100) and a new lens (Tamron 60mm f2 macro) for me, and I'm buying another bike in Korea (yes, I have a problem...) more on the bike in a day or two!

Hope everyone's well! Talk to you soon :)
T