The big 2-8....Ajumma style!

Gosh, what a great birthday! Since this birthday was one that only got me another year older, and since I'm a bit older than most of my friends here, my birthday party was an "Ajumma" theme. When us foreigners think of ajummas here in Korea we picture women over the age of 50, who have permed hair, wear very colorful clothes, and get great enjoyment from taking the advantages of being older. These things include cutting in lines, yelling at whomever, and pushing all hours of the day....Now normally these are married women, but obviously, I am not! -----------

For my birthday we just enjoyed the wonderful brightly colored clothes on a night out in Busan!

We left for Busan in the afternoon and went to the hostel that we thought that we had booked. Unfortunately, when we got to this hostel they didn't have our names so we were in the search of a new place for the 12 of us to stay! They weren't very helpful to us as we tried to find a new place... We ended up going to place that was full of love motels (one stop from the University area) and tried to find accommodation..

It ended up being our lucky day because we found a love motel, "Z Motel" who was willing to let 12 foreigners sleep in one room. The room was large enough for all of us to fit and they gave us extra bedding and pillows so everyone was comfortable. There was a nice shower and a huge bath. All of this for 15,000 won each!

This place ended up being better than the hostel we were going to stay in! Everyone was able to get dressed and ready in the same place and we had tons of laughs throughout that process.

Many of us hadn't gotten our wonderful ajumma clothes before Busan and since my bestie from America, Sarah had just gotten in to the country 12 hours before...we went shopping for our bright colors. This was an interesting process and I'm sure we got several looks as we tried on the tops...

I think that Ben ended up with the best jacket. He rocked that black and white jacket like a movie star! I actually think it looked good on him....Maybe not the pants though...





Since we had to change locations of our accomodation, this meant that we also got to ride on the metro while wearing our attire. That was an interesting experience as well. I can only imagine how many quick photos were taken of the waygooks dressed so ridiculous. Some people even had us stop to take pictures with them...

I hope people realized that we were only having fun and not making fun of anyone...

 Another great part of the night was going to this kimchi pancake place. Now, my cousin Kristen had RAVED about this place during the Halloween weekend, but since I wasn't much of a fan of kimchi... I quickly dismissed it. Well not anymore!

I don't even like kimchi and it was sooooooo amazing. Could have been the pound of cheese in the middle of it, but either way, I have found a new obsession in Busan! I will be going to this place every time I am in Busan! hahah

Ready for our kimchi pancake! Photo cred: Sarah Leming

 We quickly enjoyed some kimchi pancakes and mokkali. At one point everyone started singing "Happy Birthday" and all of the fellow Koreans in the place joined in along. I was even given a yellow rose from a random Korean woman. It was really funny....and embarrassing!
As we were leaving, Sarah drew on the wall to remember the occasion. How fun!

Photo cred: Sarah Leming

We spent the rest of the night going to different bars in the University area. We spent a lot of the time in Eva's ticket. Emily's family was here from New Zealand, so we got to meet them and her dad a tab open at the bar, so that was nice!

It was a really fun night spent with some awesome friends!

I wish I could put a camera on Ben on a night out. He is so funny! Every time we find ourselves outside he manages to find some food to eat. He disappears for a few minutes, and shows back up finishing the last few nibbles of some kind of food item. Pretty sure on this night he had multiple kababs, kimbap, waters, chips, and who know what else.... :)