Thursday, May 01, 2008

부산탑

In Busan, I stayed in a 3-stars hotel at the foot of the Yongdusan (용두산, 龍頭山). At the top of this 49m hill are the Busan Tower (부산탑, 釜山塔) and the Yongdusan Park (용두산공원, 龍頭山公園). Since the Busan Tower and the Yongdusan Park were at my doorstep, it was only natural that I went up for some sightseeing. But I am not going to talk about the park as there was nothing worth reporting. If I may say, it was just "a walk in the park". There was however something interesting about my hotel. To be specific, I mean the hotel's receptionists.

Since my hotel did not have internet connection in the rooms, whenever I need access, I had to make my way to the "Business Centre". The Business Centre was merely a small room with a computer and internet access. From where I was seated in the room, I could see clearly what was happening behind the reception counter. One afternoon, while I was using the internet, I noticed the receptionist was squatting behind the counter. On a closer look, she was eating her lunch squatting. Frankly, that wasn't a big deal if you knew what the other hotel's receptionists did.

There was this male receptionist who was on the evening shift. Guess what he did? He was watching the Korean drama "On Air" and was laughing his heart out. I knew it was "On Air" because I kept hearing its OST - 한가지 말 by FT Island. As and when there were guests at the counter, he would move away temporarily to attend to them and then it was back to the TV. I was surprised by what I saw. I never knew that hotel receptionist on duty could be so relax. However, nothing beats the next receptionist.

The day I left Busan, I decided to check out early in the morning. When I arrived at the reception counter, there wasn't anyone there. So I tried to look for the receptionist at the Business Centre but the room was locked. I knocked on the door several times only to see a blurry-eyes guy opening the door later. I swear that my jaw was on the floor when I discovered that this hotel's receptionist actually slept while on shift. Anyway, after I handed over my room key to him, he just uttered "필요없는 것" (nothing else) to me and went back to his sleep. He is super cool right? Hurhurhur... I am very sure that I checked into a 3-stars hotel but what I saw really amused me.

Now, back to what is supposed to be the topic of this post - the Busan Tower and the Yongdusan Park.

The Busan Tower stands tall in the Yongdusan Park.

The Busan Tower and the statue of Korean hero - Admiral Yi Sun Shin.

Cherry blossom and pigeons at one corner of the park.

A closer look at the fully-bloomed cherry blossom.

At the observation deck. More than 180 deg view of the Busan city below.

Admiral Yi still overseeing Busan port after his last battle at Noryang in 1598.

No comments:

Post a Comment