Pusan International Film Festival

PUSAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

This weekend we took the high speed train from Seoul to the Southern coastal city, Busan, for an international film festival. The high speed train was crazy...it goes about 300 km/hr so we went from the very north to the very south of Korea in under three hours.

The festival was fun, there were tons of movies, directors, interviews etc. and we got to do some good sightseeing and relaxing by the beach. We saw a funny/weird/good Chinese movie with Korean and English subtitles. There are tonnns of movies, but you have to wake up early to get tickets otherwise they all sell out. We had tickets for another movie but they wouldn't let us in cause we were ten minutes late which was extremely annoying. But the next day we saw the movie Orz Boyz so we could actually say we saw a movie at the film festival.

Busan is a really fun and interesting city. It's nice cause its right on the beach but also really big so its definitely not a small coastal city. We went out on a boat ride on the water and saw these really cool rock islands. It literally looked like someone dropped massive chunks of mountains right into the Sea of Japan. We also met a bunch of other SMOE people from Seoul so it was exciting to meet people and have more fun friends back in Seoul. My favorite part of the weekend was the fish market. It is both indoor/outdoor and I don't think I can describe how cool it is. You walk up and down the aisles of fresh fish sprawled everywhere. You seriously feel like you are going to step on fish cause they just spill out into the walkways. Like they have giant squid, shark heads, octopus tentacles, huge/weird fish out in buckets and on tables waiting for you to buy. Also, there are many "restaurants" next to these stands and you can eat raw or cooked fish straight from the fish stands. We ate at one and they gave us soooo much food and it was insanely good.


It was an extremely tiring but fun weekend. I actually don't have a very busy week at work because all my students are taking midterms which means I get done everyday at 1!!! Hope you all are doing well back in the States...I miss you...call me!!! XOXOX Reenie

Fish market...
Our fantastic fish dinner

Tonnnnnns of dried fish
The fish market. I think it was the ambiance of the market because it was the first time that it hit me that I was actually living in Asia.
Our favorite fish lady




Our boat ride on the Sea of Japan...they played awkward Western music which ranged from Mama Mia to Surfin USA to weird Asian instrumentals...very confusing



The cool rock islands. We still have no idea how people are out there. They are in the middle of NOWHERE and there were no boats anywhere in sight and absolutely now way to get from one island to another. Since the boat was playing ancient Asian music at this time it kinda seemed like we were observing some prisoners or a lost island race...highly confusing yet entertaining.




Our new friends from SMOE!!

SOOOO cute!!


The beach grounds of the film festival, waiting for our movie to start