Christmas Eve:
We spent Christmas Eve at our friend Sally's apartment for a White Elephant gift exchange. She invited a ton of people, but it turned out that Frank was the only guy that showed up with 10 girls! The gift exchange turned out to be hilarious!
We got a small Christmas tree for our gift.
Jen (Canada), Janna (Canada), and Kat (England)
Our co-worker Josephine got a tacky Christmas decoration.
Kat got the gift of the night...12 fake mustaches!!!
Mr. and Mr. Casale
Eliza (Canada) and Sally (Texas)
Eliza...aka John Lennon
The Hitler girls
Christmas Day
Christmas Day was a lot of fun, too. We woke up early and went to Josephine's apartment, which is 2 buildings over from ours. She surprised us by making scrambled eggs, bacon, and bagels for breakfast! After that, we took a bus to Busan to go on a bay cruise and have lunch. Once again, it was 5 girls and Frank.
Waiting for the bus with Josephine and Jen
Haeundae Cruise
We arrived in Busan just in time to take the 1 hour boat ride at 1:10. The cruise began at Haeundae Beach and took us out to Oryuk-do islands, which is a combination of 6 rock islands, 5 of which can be seen from the shore.
The boat we took
Kay, Julia, Frank, Jen, and Josephine on the boat
Kay, Julia, Frank, Jen, and Josephine on the boat
Group shot: Julia, Melissa, Josephine, Kay, Jen, and Frank
A view of Haeundae Beach, which was pretty packed with people dressed in their winter clothes.
We passed the Gwangan Bridge
Frank and Kay with Kay's heart-shaped crackers
Kay loved her crackers!
Our first glimpse at the Oryuk-do islands
3 of the 6 islands...we saw a few people fishing on them, but we're not sure how they got out there.
3 of the 6 islands...we saw a few people fishing on them, but we're not sure how they got out there.
Notice the birds in the background? Tons of them flew next to the boat for almost half an hour wanting food.
A little girl trying to feed the bird on the back of the boat
We also passed a lighthouse
Here's a video of us on the boat
Lunch:
After the boat ride, we were all pretty hungry so we headed to a really nice Thai restaurant called "Hello Thai." The restaurant was beautiful and the food was delicious.
Walking to the restaurant along Haeundae Beach
Walking to the restaurant along Haeundae Beach
We passed this bar and thought the people at home would appreciate the name!
Starbucks:
After lunch, our last stop in Busan was Starbucks...which we ended-up staying at for about an hour. This was a perfect ending to our Christmas day in Busan!
Even though this picture is a little blurry, I couldn't resist posting it. This little boy at Starbucks was adorable and kept walking passed our table smiling and waving. It was really hard for me to not snatch him up and bring him home!
In a couple of days, we are going on a trip to Shanghai, China to spend the New Year's holiday with 8 other English teachers. We're so excited to have this opportunity to travel again to China, since we really loved our trip to Beijing in May.
We hope everyone has a happy and healthy new year!
Melissa, We enjoyed your pictures! We are glad you had such a good time on Christmas day with your friends over there. You always find interesting things to do. It's good you don't have a lot of snow. There is still some ice just outside our garage, and it took a few minutes for the truck to get traction and go out the driveway. Grandpa went to bring Terry over for dinner today. Tulsa has deep snow and a layer of ice, so church had to be cancelled for today.
ReplyDeleteHave a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Enjoy your trip.
Love, Grandma