best anniversary gift evAr

Matt and I celebrated our fifth anniversary yesterday. He took work off (the sweetie) and we spent the whole day together. We went out to lunch at On the Border (Mexican food, yum!) and then drove around the Bugak Skyway (북악 스카이웨이), which is a winding mountain road that offers many diverse and amazing panoramas of Seoul. We walked about the Palgakjeong Pavilion on the summit, and afterwards ate ice cream, mint chocolate chip for me and chocolate for him.

According to tradition, the fifth anniversary gift should be wood or silverware. However, from our dates to our engagement to our invitations to our wedding and celebrations, I ask you, have we ever been traditional?

Here is what Matt gave me for our fifth anniversary:

A custom pink NES

My slimes are showing it off to great advantage. Thank you, slimes. And thank you, Matt, for the best anniversary gift ever.

Trip to Busan

Recently, Tiffany and I went on a short trip to Busan along with a good friend of mine and his girlfriend. We took the KTX (bullet train) down in the evening, and got there in about 3 hours. Not too bad for crossing the country!

When we arrived in Busan, another friend of mine who used to live in Seoul met us at the station. He took us around town and we got to cruise through the city at night. He took us to see the scenic Gwangalli Bridge:



After seeing the bridge and dropping off our bags at our accomodations, we went out for a midnight dinner. Seafood, of course :)


We got to stay in a condo on the famous Haeundae Beach. Pretty good location, I must say. In fact, we were on the east end of the beach, so we got to walk the whole length of the beach.



It was a pretty crisp day, so not many people were out. Well, as we walked along the mile-long beach, more people started showing up. I figure we picked a pretty good time to come here; if we were here during the summer, the place would be absolutely packed :)


As we walked along the beach, we saw some seagulls racing through the surf, so I decided to take a video. Their little legs were going so fast it was funny to watch. The race ended in a photo finish!

Here is Tiffany and I standing in the yard next to the APEC House (not pictured), where several world leaders came to discuss economy and trade in 2005. You can see the Gwangalli Bridge in the background.

I was impressed by how clean Busan was. As you can see, even the subways were immaculate:

We took the subway over to Seomyeon, a famous shopping district. I hunted for some video games I wanted, but didn't have any luck.

For lunch, we met up with our friend again and had a delicious lunch, a seafood kalguksu shabu-shabu. It was a real hit with everybody (especially Tiff!):

After lunch, we checked out the famous Jagalchi Fish Market. It was a bit fancier than the one we have here in Seoul, with an absolutely dizzying array of seafood.

Here's me posing next to the port:

After visiting the fish market, we cruised the nearby Gukje Market and stopped by the Smoothie King. At this point, we were so tired from walking around that we just decided to head back to the station to catch our train back to Seoul. Not too bad for a one-day trip!