Holi Hai Celebration in Busan

The Indian celebration of Holi Hai is also called the festival of colors. I didn't know, but apparently there is a rather large community of Indians in Busan, and they organize a Holi celebration every year on Haeundae Beach. Holi was a short celebration for a few hours on Sunday afternoon, and the ex-pats in Korea celebrated St. Patrick's Day on Saturday. Seoul has a huge St. Patrick's Day celebration, but we chose to

Haeundae Beach

just go down to Busan an extra day early to relax and celebrate both holidays there. We went down with our friend Kyle on Saturday afternoon on a train. It only takes about 2 hours to get to Busan. We ended up at Haeundae Station and took a taxi to the beach area where our hostels were. We stayed at Mr. Egg hostel. It was really close to all kinds of restaurants and only 5 minutes from the beach. A great location and really relaxing. The hostel had bunk beds, which I wasn't expecting, but it was perfectly comfortable, and there was free eggs and toast for breakfast. We decided to get some lunch and walk around a bit. As we walked along the beach, we stumbled on the aquarium, and decided to check it out. It was a small aquarium, but I think it was bigger even than the one in Boston. It was only 20,000 won for admission, and it was

Gianni and the sea turtle

completely underground! I think that is so strange for an aquarium! How do the animals and plants get any light. It was cool though. There

porpoises

were two big tanks with different animals and a tunnel surrounded by water where you could see sharks and sea turtles. We looked around there for a few hours before heading back to our hostel for a rest before to pub. In the Haeundae area is an Irish pub called the Wolfhound, so what better way to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in Korea than at an Irish pub. Originally, we thought we'd get a late dinner there and then hang out, but because Holi Hai brought

cool sting ray

foreigners from all over Korea to Busan, it was totally crowded when we got there. Instead, we went to a nearby restaurant

you got some crazy teeth shark

and had some decent burger then went to a delicious coffee/chocolate place next to the Wolfhound. De Chocolate Coffee had amazing drinks! I highly recommend it. I got "deep dark chocolate," which was really rich hot chocolate, and Gianni got chocolate coffee. It was delicious. At around 10pm, we decided to go up to Wolfhound. It was crazy trying to move around in there and get drinks, but there were tons of people there we knew. I'm not Irish, and I don't pretend to be, even on St. Patrick's, so I decided to go with subtle attire. I wore a tartan skirt that had green in it. We chatted with our friends from Daegu, Stef, Kat, and Tara, and even Niall came. He had gone to Seoul earlier that day but still made it to Busan as well. He had some paint and was putting Irish flags on everyone. Wolfhound was playing a weird mix of regular dancing music and Celtic songs, but eventually, they stopped playing the Celtic stuff, sadly. Lish and her friends from Jinju came to Busan also, but they arrived wicked late. It was really nice to see her again and her friends were really nice. We drank and danced at Wolfhound until 2am before heading out to grab some fried chicken before bed. It was a really really fun night of singing, drunkenness, and dancing--what else can you expect from St. Patrick's Day.

The next morning we got up sort of early to make the hostel's breakfast and go pick up our colored dust for Holi Hai on the beach. They gave us each one color of dust, a soda, and two samosas. The weather was beautiful and warm on Sunday! So we spent a little time just relaxing on the beach. I found out that even Korea has cool sea shells that you can't find at home (I don't have to go all the way to Thailand). The Holi Festival started, and I stayed out of it a bit with my camera, trying to get some pictures before joining the fun. I think I got some great results except that my camera lens got some drops of champagne on it when the organizers of the event opened champagne on stage and the wind blew it. I took some pictures and then went in to get colorful myself. Everyone was having a great time, dancing and finding white spots on other people to fill in. After the colored dust got thrown, people went around with some blue paint, and it basically turned into a dance party. By that time, Lish was feeling kind of bad from the night before, and Gianni was sitting with her on the beach.  The whole thing only lasted 3 hours (12-3pm), and we only stayed for one. Lish wanted to go get some food and coffee, so we went with her and her friends. We grabbed some kebabs before heading back to the train station to check on getting tickets back to Daegu.

Stef, Jake, and Maria

Korea has a foreigner information hotline that you can call with questions about Korea, but I have found that they aren't always right.

Niall and Tara

They gave me the wrong information about trains back to Daegu. I thought there would be no seats left, and we'd have to stand. Fortunately for us--and for Kyle, who we also got a ticket for--there were seats left

Lish and her Jinju companions

on the train. We waited in the station for an hour and a half. It's strange that there wasn't even a convenience store in the station for us to get snacks at, and we started to get hungry after a while. I read some of the new book I started at my cousin's request. I think Gianni and I both spent the entire train ride back to Daegu sleeping since we only got like 4 hours of sleep the previous night. We decided to get pizza and ice cream (super healthy choice!) and watch the Veronica Mars Movie that just came out. We're serious V. Mars fans, and I backed the kickstarter campaign, so we got a free digital copy of the movie. No spoilers, but it was everything I hoped for and more!!!

Thomas and Sian

Kyle, Sian, and I

This weekend is Busan was so relaxing and fun. We got to hang out with all of our friend groups. It's so cool to see that, in Korea, we are able to celebrate Korean holidays and culture as well as those of the very strong ex-pat community. In Gianni's words, "this weekend was perfect."