boats and birds - B is the letter of the day

a couple of weekends ago Kat and i were in Busan. it was Remembrance Day in Canada and we went to the UN Memorial Cemetery, but we also went on a boat tour to the Oryuk Islets. They are really big enough to be called islands - really they're only giant rocks sticking out of the water. But, they are one of the ten prides of Busan - two down and eight to go!

anyway, it was a pretty interesting ride. we paid like twelve bucks to get on this little boat with a whackload of koreans - we were the only waegooks (foreigners) on the ride. i like boats - a lot- and was actually more excited than i let on. i was, however, a little worried about the cold wind that would be attacking us while sitting on the open deck. actually, i think that the cold that has been clinging to me for weeks is a cause of that wind... but i digress.

the boat from the dock.

we got prime seats for the ride. there was a couple sitting in front of us, and the guy kept trying to talk to us, though he didn't really know any english. i thought he was drunk, but can't be sure.

the boat load of Koreans on the trip with us.

We were expecting the wind, the people, maybe even a little splash of the cold water, but we were not expecting to be cast as extras in a re-make of "the Birds". i've seen it a bunch of times (kat has apparently never gotten through it) but never wanted to be IN it. i once saw it at Place des Arts in Montreal at an outdoor film festival - the screen was the size of the building (maybe 8 stories high) and it scares the hell out of me every time. anyway, the first half of our boat ride was exactly like the parts of the movie where the birds are flying towards you in the audience and you feel like they're going to come flying out of the screen - only this time they were real.

this is nothing, there were hundreds of them...

to make matters worse the "drunk" guy in front of us, and all the korean actually, were throwing food off the side of the boat for them all. the woman in front of us kept holding shrimp chips in her hand, maybe in hopes of getting a shit-hawk to land on her arm... i don't know, but it didn't make for easy picture taking of the landscape... but i did manage to get this shot of Gwangalli Bridge with a pretty sailboat:not bad considering the birds were in the way most of the time.

The Oryuk Islets (according to the 'dynamic busan' website) are the symbol of Busan "Busan citizens think that the sea is like a living stage, expressing their happiness and sorrows." that is SO korean... ;)

the Oryuk islets consist of "Pangpae Islets, Suri Islets, Songot Islets, Kull Islets, and Patt Islets. The history of this name is that sea rises to the saddle of Pangpae Islets at high tide, dividing it into two, so that there appear to be six Islets." We weren't there at high tide, so we didn't see all of them, though i tried to figure out where they would be divided and couldn't see that either... in fact, i could only see four and we went all the way around them...
the first view we had of them... looks like there are only two.

this is the first view we got of them...looks like there are only two... (i love the contrast in this shot...)

me and the lighthouse

the lighthouse

the waves were really strong on the way back. some korean were lying on the benches below deck trying not to be sick... i'm not sure if anyone was or not.

i hope you can tell in the video that it isn't my shaky hands making the camera do that, but the waves knocking the boat around. we had to hold on for dear life a couple of times, but it was great... it almost felt like we were on an amusement park ride.

all in all it was a great time and worth the money... afterwards, we went to O'Briens for nachos and burgers... yum yum...