Gabrielle Visits Busan Day 3: Touring Beautiful Songdo Trail and Beach

BACKBLOGGING STRATEGIES 

This post is about Day 3 of Gabrielle's visit to Busan, but if you're observant, you will notice that I have not written about Day 1 or 2. Sometimes, it's easier to work backwards, especially when there's an overwhelming number of posts to catch up on. Man, life is exciting! 

The beginning-ish of our short beach-side trail

WHO IS GABRIELLE?

Gabrielle is a fellow Fulbright ETA, who has spent the year teaching at Hwacheon in the Gangwon Province of northern South Korea. She is so far up north that her location parallels that of the Korean Demilitarized Zone. I have been to the DMZ, which I posted about here, but I have never been to Hwacheon. Gabrielle says it's beautiful up there with its mountains and rural-area charm. 

Her visit to Busan was an attempt to see what the southern end of South Korea was like (I may or may not have been bragging endlessly about my placement). When opportunity for travel came, she hopped on to buses, traveled for nine hours (if I remember correctly), and, arriving very late Friday night, spent some serious quality time with my Korean homestay family for an extended weekend. 

MEET MY FAMILIES IN BUSAN!

She humored me as I showed her around Dynamic Busan (but mostly Yeong Island, due to time constraints), and also took the time to use the Korean she had learned to communicate with my homestay family. They were endlessly impressed! 

None of the various communities I had been bragging about here disappointed. My homestay embraced Gabrielle as if they never wanted to see her leave, and my church family has spent the Sundays since her departure asking after her. With their help, I was able to show Gabrielle more sides of Busan. 

We stopped to grab some coffee at a Starbucks at Songdo Beach

Here is a photo story of our time in Songdo Beach. I had been to the beach before, but not on the trail, so every step was a treat for me as well! 

WELCOME TO SONGDO BEACH

Tour Guide: Sin Jae

The city of Busan is known around the country for its beautiful beaches. Songdo Beach is one of them!

Sin Jae and Gabrielle forging ahead

One of the bridges connecting Yeongdo with the rest of Busan

Songdo Beach!

Rounding the corner to more awesome views ahead!

This deck gave us an eyefull

People were fishing, families were picnicking, and groups of ajummas were hiking all over the place

Yeongdo is right behind them!

After lunch, we went to the beach, where Gabrielle and I both took off our shoes and frolicked hand-in-hand along the shore (it's a Korean thing we adopted, I think)

And then I found out that Gabrielle absolutely abhors having sand stuck on her feet and between her toes, so I used my rolled up socks to wipe off the sand for her. For a second there, I was an older sister again. This is her chillaxing right before we headed to the subway station to send her off

Saying goodbye at the subway station 

KIND OF ISOLATED BUT DEFINITELY NOT ALONE

While I love just burrowing myself into the cozy and homey environment that is Yeongdo, it's times like these that remind me that my unique geographic location on an island really does serve to kind of isolate me from the rest of the world. With Gabrielle's visit, I remembered my hunger to reach out, and my desire to share with folks not on the island what it's like living and teaching here.

Thank you for the time you spent visiting me here in Busan, friend!