Haeundae Beach

I posted pics on picassa.

Mong and went to Haeundae Beach today, with 5 or 6 of his friends and one of their girlfriends. The beach is in Busan, and it's supposed to be the most popular beach in Korea (on the mainland). Despite it not yet being peak season (high schoolers have another week or so and then it gets realllllly crowded), there weer still sooo many people there. Yes, the most crowded beach i've ever been on. Everyone rents an umbrella, and with it they get a kind of foily padded tarp thing and two tubes--so the 8 of us rented one and Mong brought another mat thing too. The most interesting thing to me at the beach was people watching. Koreans wear bathing suits. And then they wear shorts, tshirts (short and long sleeved, button up, polo shirts, guys tend to wear tank tops) in the water over the top. These clothes dont look like "swimming clothes"---you know, a pair of thin shorts are considered swimming apparell for a girl, and maybe a halter or tank top. No, they just go in fully clothed---most of them wear jean shorts or normal, everyday, rather thick shorts. I assumed rght of the bat it was for sun protection---and i know also, especially for the girls, that they dont want to show to much. But even the guys tend to wear shirts too. Guys in the twenties not soo much, but still probably t least half of them.

Throughout the day---we were there 5 hours or so, I probably saw 15 girls wearing only bathing suits (bikinis). That made me feel a little better about standing out at the beginning. Unlike everyone else, I only brought two sets of clothing: 1. my bathing suit. 2. shirt, shorts, underwear. The girls go there, then they change into a different pair of shirts and shirt, with the bathingsuit under them, and then swim (i dont know how swimming in jean shorts and a colored button up shirt can be comfortable), then they shower and put the dry clothes on. Oh, they also go in wearing hats most of the time, and not only sunglasses, but their regular glasses too. Lots of Koreans wear glasses--somewhere I heard, and confirmed with the eye doctor at Lenscrafters, that Asians are more prone to needing eye correction---I forget why thought. One day I counted out of 17 males I saw in range, 12 were wearing glasses (it's harder to count with girls, because most of them wear contacts as I've learned). I can assure you that not only do many Koreans need glasses, but they wear them in the ocean, with waves. I was wading through the water and something hard hit my leg. I blindly reached down and pulled up a pair of glasses. Cute frames too, dark reddish color, rectangle shape---cant see out of them but I think I'll get the lenses changed (its absurdly cheap for lenses that cost $310 in the states--they are 20 here) and wear them.

MOng is now in deathly misery, as he waited an hour or two to put sunscreen on, and now he looked like a roasting cherry. I only burned on my shins and a little on my chest, not so bad. But he appears to be on his death bed and doesn't let anyone get in the air stream of his fan, as it blows air onto the ice water soaked towel on his back. Needless to say, his parents are too thrilled that the originally dark son came back beat red and the orginally pale me came back barely pink on the shins. Now he'll listen to me when I say he needs sunscreen (last summer he was adamant he didnt need it---then he peeled). I think after he saw his friends using it, he decided to also.

It was overcast at the beginning, and rained for about 15 minutes, in which I volunteered to be buried in sand. After being burried and having sand shaped on me, I was a he-she, if you know what I mean. After that the clouds blew in and out and the last hour was nice and sunny.

In conclusion, This is a very NON provocative society. Even if it's 85 or 90 outside with 80% humidity, people generally don't wear tank tops. In fact, with middle ages and older women, they tend to wear long sleeves in that weather, with a scarf around their neck and gloves, with a massive 10inch visor. If you remember my post about hiking and sun protecting clothing , this is how the women are starting to dress now since it's raining less and being sunny more.