Greetings all from Northeast China!
It is starting to feel like Autumn here and by the Chinese calendar, it should...we just celebrated the "mid autumn festival" and National holiday week...1 full week of holiday combined with vacation made for a good opportunity to get out of China and have some rest and relaxation on a beach...in Asia, there are lots of beaches, so the decision on where to go was not obvious...except that we both really like S. Korea and there is a direct flight from Shenyang to Seoul that only takes 1 hour 20 minutes..and from Seoul, we can go most anywhere in the world...so we decided to go to Busan, South Korea. We had never been there...had planned to go there this past summer, but with a couple of typhoons and alot of heat, we opted to just stay in Seoul back in August. This time, Rod made reservations to take the high speed train from Seoul to Busan and away we went. The ride on the train was very nice...took us about 3 hours to get from Seoul to Busan and it took us right through the fertile farmland of S. Korea..lots of rice farming.
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| Rice growing somewhere between Seoul and Busan, as seen from the high speed train |
Once we got to Busan, we checked into our hotel and were able to start relaxing, looking around...and Busan is a beauitful beach resort city.
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| Just had to take a picture of the toilet...this thing does everything I am not used to a toilet doing...good news is, it also acts like a normal toilet...so you don't have use all of the "features" to use it! |
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| View from our window of Busan, S. Korea |
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| View of the Haeundae beach from the lounge of the hotel |
After spending the night, we took the subway, then a bus up to the fortress walls around he south of the City...evidently China is not the only country who built walls here in Asia...after several attacks from China and Japan in the 1600's, Korea built their own wall...not as monumental as the Chinese one, but a wall, none the less. It has 4 distinct "doors" (North South, East, West) and is about 17km around the entire wall. We didn't hike it all (far from it)..but we did hike some and were able to get some beautiful views of the area (and each other!)
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| Rod and Sarah Miller with the Great Wall of Busan, S. Korea in the background |
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| Rod Miller relaxing on a rock with a view |
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| One of the beautiful views of Busan...and native fall blooming Azalea! |
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| Rod hanging out between two Korean totum poles |
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| The South gate of the Korean Great Wall around Busan |
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| Sarah on top of the great Korean wall |
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| Rod and Sarah on top of the Korean wall, South Gate |
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| Sarah taking a break after walking "a few" Km on the great wall |
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| Rod and Sarah Miller walking up to the South Gate door on the Korean great wall |
When we got back from hiking the wall, we got cleaned up and went on a dinner cruise around the Busan harbor...very nice way to top off an already great day!
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| Sarah & Rod Miller aboard the Tiffany Harbor Cruise boat in Busan, S. Korea |
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| Busan harbor and the Tiffany dinner cruise boat |
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| The bridge over the bay in Busan, S. Korea..full moon in the background! |
The next day, we enjoyed a nice walk along the beach..right outside our hotel.
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| Rod & Sarah Miller on Busan beach..Sarah's getting ready for a jog..not on the beach, but in the park just behind the hotel. |
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| Rod congratulating the Korean Iron man club..they were just getting ready to do their swim (God knows how many miles!) in the ocean...it was cold...there is a reason they call them iron men! | |
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| Rod Miller in the park beside the lighthouse behind out hotel in Busan, Korea |
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| Sarah Miller on the boardwalk in the park in Busan |
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| Rod by the sea in Busan |
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| The dome building on the right is where the G20 had their 2010 conference...glad they weren't there while we were, or we surely wouldn't have been allowed anywhere near! |
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| Rod and Sarah in the Sea of Japan in Busan, South Korea |
After Busan, we went back up to the Seoul and just relaxed for a couple of days (read...Sarah had some retail therapy at the custom leather coat store...no pictures here yet...they will ship in a couple of weeks!)
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| View from our hotel room in Seoul |
All in all, it was a very nice vacation and a nice break. Tomorrow I head out for Poland and Romania on another business trip...and a couple of more trips this year...then things should slow down considerably for my business travel...just in time for the plant to startup in 2013!
Thanks for your continued thoughts and prayers!
Rod & Sarah
