Busan - A day of photos

The wooden fences hadn’t stopped the fishermen from climbing onto the rocks at water’s edge, so why should they stop me? I pantomime-asked a man returning from underneath the lighthouse if I could hop the fence and climb down onto the uneven rocks below, as well. He gave me the “go ahead nod” (I assumed the “go ahead nod” was international and that it doesn’t translate to a “you will plummet to an unsightly and unfortunate death” nod in Korea) and then laughed at the fact that I was wearing sandals. Oh silly Americans and their insensible footwear.


Truth was I had an hour left of sunlight before meeting my friends for dinner after a day of my new favorite pastime; photography. I was not about the miss a sunset from the rocks near the water’s edge, the light shining from beyond the mile-long bridge in the distant and over the seagull-infested rocky shoreline that crept along the hilly peninsula. As it turned out, the sunset was anything but spectacular, my feet were freezing as I sat on the cold rocks, waving at the Korean ladies by the lighthouse, and my camera battery was beginning to die after six hours of photo-taking.

The area surrounding Hae-undae beach in Busan is quite spectacular; a juxtaposition of modern buildings co-existing with high-reaching tropical trees, wooden walkways winding over dodgy rocks collecting crashing waves, local joggers speeding by on a rubber orange track that curiously blends in with its natural surroundings. Seagulls fly over the pale, moon-sliver of a beach where groups and families play in the sand in their sweatshirts, enjoying a balmy 68-degree sunny day. It all seems too perfect, and it was in a way.

I feel that there will always be a special place in my soul for the ocean. I won’t swim in it, and I’ve told myself I won’t succumb and take a cruise-ship job, but the simple sound of the ocean, the waves, the constant ebb and flow, the unvarying unpredictability of the water, it seems so soothing, so indescribable. Yet it is something that will take anyone’s breath away, something that needs no description for everyone has been there and seen that. Without waxing anymore poetic than I already have, I’ll leave you with some pictures from my day. I believe they fill in the gaps.