Family Vacation - Part 2

Day Two: The girls were anxious to get on to the most anticipated part of the trip: The Tiger! After a huge buffet breakfast of "western" food (fried potatoes, scrambled/fried/boiled eggs, bacon, sausage, waffles, endless pastries, cheeses, sugar cerals, etc.!) we set off for the day.

In Busan's Lotte Hotel there is a live tiger kept in a habitat where those willing to pay upwards of $9 for a cup of coffee can sit and observe to their heart's content. We were seated, ordered the special set of two *small* cups of coffee and two scoops of Haagen Dazs on a waffle, before we realized that the tiger was locked up in his cage due to some sort of work being done in the habitat. Boo! JMunk was able to get a pretty good look at the beast, but poor little LMunk just couldn't quite find it in the mangle of bars and stripes. We certainly would have liked to have seen more of the critter, but the girls didn't seem too terribly disappointed, and the coffee was actually okay.

Since the temperature was mild, we took advantage of the sunshine and some much needed vitamin D. We visited the United Nations Memorial Cemetery. We got a few good photos of the Colombian flag and graves of Colombian soldiers, thinking of LMunk's namesake.


WMunk & LMunk with Colombia's flag


Headstones of Colombian soldiers killed in battle in Korea

At the memorial was a wall similar to the Vietnam Wall displayed in Washintgon, D.C.



After some time exploring the memorial, we went back to the hotel for some lunch and a nap. When we were all awake and rallied, and as it was still a bit early for dinner, we took a stroll on the boardwalk and really enjoyed the early evening air. JMunk tried tirelessly to count all the stones she stepped on, but as it was impossible to step on just one at a time, she eventually gave in and enjoyed sprinting to and fro.

Our first choice for dinner that evening was at a Thai restaurant called "Hello Thai." We love Thai food, and the closest we can get to it in Pohang is what I concoct in my kitchen (which is pretty good, but not great), so we'd been eagerly looking forward to this dining experience. The only trouble was, it appeared Hello Thai must have gone out of business, because it most definitely wasn't where all the maps and descriptions of its location had landed us. That was strike one. So we went in search of a second Thai place, Mango Tree, that was farther from the hotel and required a taxi ride, but certainly worth it in our minds. That night we must have picked the only taxi drivers in Busan without GPS. Our first driver had no idea what we were talking about, so DaddyMunk did his best to navigate for him. Riding with that driver became frustrating, so we finally insisted that he let us out and found ourselves another driver. Again, no GPS, but this guy got directions from a local shopkeeper before we all piled in. He took us back to the same street DaddyMunk had directed the first driver to, but again we couldn't find the restaurant. So our kind driver got out and asked a parking attendant where it was. Closed for good. Strike two. We had passed an Indonesian place on the way, so we had the driver return us to that restaurant. It looked pretty quiet, and when we got to the seventh floor where it was located, it was dead. No one was there, the lights were mostly out, although the door was unlocked. As we were about to load back up in the elevator, a woman somehow related to the restaurant came running up the stairs, oohed and ahead over the wees, but offered no explanation (in fact she looked kind of blank, as though we had just come by to say hello). So we got back on that elevator, then walked a few blocks to flag down another taxi. Strike three. During our cab ride we decided we'd learned our lesson: call first! As the taxi dropped us near our hotel, we remembered a British place that serves fish & chips, and we had very specific instructions on how to find the place. Another taxi ride later we were a block away. Up that hill and down we searched, and the closest we came to Dave's Fish & Chips was a Korean chicken & chips place, most definitely not British, and not what we wanted. Strike four. Obviously we should have been out long before then, and obviously we hadn't learned our lesson. As I was starting to get rather hungry imagined everyone else was, and as it was nearing 8:30, I started to pray that God would help us to find something that would really make us happy, something we couldn't find in Pohang - a real treat. Just then we saw a pair of Canadians walking toward us, so we stopped them and asked them what the deal was with non-Korean food in Busan. Bingo! They told us Mango Tree had closed a few months ago, as had Dave's Fish & Chips, *but* Hello Thai was still up and running, we just hadn't been on the right street! They drew us a pretty detailed map on a scrap of paper, and sent us off with a few other recommendations. Twenty minutes later we were filling our bellies with a much anticipated Thai feast!


Happy JMunk





Happy LMunk