Happy Birthday Frank!

On May 22, we celebrated Frank's 31st birthday with a 3 day weekend full of festivities...thanks to Buddha's birthday which gave us Friday off.

Saturday morning, Frank woke-up to his birthday cake...there's nothing like starting the day off with a nutritious breakfast of cheesecake.

We ate lunch at The Golden Eagle, which is a new British pub/restaurant in downtown Ulsan.

Delicious fish n' chips and a Philly cheese steak.

Korea!

The birthday boy
Dinner at Papa Johns:
After lunch, we took a bus to Busan to meet up with 18 of our friends to celebrate Frank, Jason, and Dan's birthdays. We had SUCH a great time, however it poured rain the entire weekend.

There were so many of us in our group that we couldn't be seated at a nice restaurant without waiting forever, so we opted for dinner at Papa Johns, which was still special since we hadn't eaten there since we'd been in Korea.

Damien, Tom, Eliza, and Dan

Jenn, Josephine, and Julia

Kaye and her friend
The Rock and Roll Bar:

After dinner, we all faced the torrential downpour to walk down the street to a well-known foreigner hangout called The Rock and Roll bar. It was so packed inside that we could barely move, but we ended up making the best of it since no one wanted to go out in the rain again.

The 3 birthday guys: Dan (May 23), Frank (May 22), and Jason (May 31)

Frank with the ladies sitting in front of the window with a lovely view of the rain.: Anna, Sally, Jenn, Josephine, and Julia

Eliza, Melissa, and Jenn

Dancing the night away!

Abracadabra Korean dance

Frank and Tom

Josephine(our coworker) and Melissa

Jason Patrick, Tarryn, and Frank

Tarryn, Melissa, and Sally

The happy couple

Jenn, Anna, Josephine, Tarryn, and Cassie

The Next Day: Fuzzy Navel

We all stayed the night in hotels near the beach in Busan and spent the next day hanging out at a Mexican restaurant called Fuzzy Navel. Ideally, we would have been down the street at the beach all day, but the rain was still pouring. It turned out to be a lot of fun, though.

Tom, Damien, Josephine, and Frank

Tom, Dan, and Jason.

A group shot of the servers and bartenders at Fuzzy Navel.

Damien, Josephine, Jenn, Melissa, and Tarryn

Anna and Cassie

We occupied a lot of our time playing darts.

This Korean woman brought her dog into the restaurant for a couple hours...very strange.

Frank with Jenn, Tarryn, and Anna

After Fuzzy Navel, we made our way to Paradise Hotel to play some Blackjack at their casino then ended the night at a Korean BBQ beef restaurant. We arrived back in Ulsan around 10pm Sunday night exhausted, but thankful to have had such a fun weekend celebrating with good friends.

Easter in Busan

Last Sunday, we spent the day celebrating Easter on a beautiful Spring day in Busan. We started by eating Mexican food for lunch at Fuzzy Navel...we can't get any Mexican food in the city we live in.

Mmmm...beef chimichanga!

Soft taco...couldn't compete with the deep-fried chimichanga, but pretty good.

Haeundae Beach: After lunch, we walked down the street to Haeundae Beach. We spent about an hour strolling the boardwalk and enjoying the beautiful weather.

We even had the pleasure of coming across a Korean man wearing a thong speedo!!! haha!!

Fishing boats in Haeundae Beach.

Haedong Yonggungsa Temple:
After the beach, we decided to take a taxi to a temple we'd heard was really nice. The internet said it should take about 10 minutes to drive to the temple from Haeundae Beach, but with the traffic we ran into on Sunday, it took us 35 minutes! It was well worth the "long" drive along the side of a mountain with beautiful views of the sea.

Haedong Yonggungsa Temple is located on the north-eastern coast of Busan and was first built in 1376 during the Goryeo Dynasty. This is a rare temple because it's along the shore line. Most temples in Korea are located in the mountains.

This was our first glimpse of the temple, which was constructed on the side of the mountain next to the sea.

This temple was built on all different levels of the mountain...so we were constantly going up and down rock stairs. It made for beautiful views, though.

The temple had one wall full of these small figurines...not sure why, but they looked cute. :)

This dragon had more of the little figurines.

Taking some stairs down into a small cave, we came across lots of candles and incense.

Duck! We ended the day by eating at a duck restaurant back in Ulsan. Surprisingly, duck tastes and looks like ham! It comes with a honey-mustard dipping sauce and some leaves to wrap it in. It's definitely one of the best foods we've had here in Korea.

Our time in Korea is coming to an end in about 8 weeks. We're really excited to be coming home to see our family, friends, and dogs!!! This year and a half in Korea has been a wonderful experience, but a long time to be away from home. See you soon!