Since Connery’s school was off last Friday, we decided to take a mini-trip to Busan. It’s about a 90-120 minute drive, depending on traffic. We stayed at the Westin Chosun Busan, which sits right on Haeundae Beach – a large, powdery soft sand beach that was pretty empty, as swimming is forbidden this time of year. In summer, it looks to be insanely crowded. Haeundae is one of the swankier, touristy parts of Busan, and there were construction projects and upgrades in progress everywhere.
We walked along the (concrete) boardwalk, ate at an Indian restaurant, visited the aquarium, then returned to the hotel to swim in their indoor pool. Well, the kids swam (they have a nice little kiddie pool); Aaron and I sat along the edge and watched some grannies do a swim aerobics class in the adult pool. Then Lena decided to jump with all her might just as I was leaning over to help her out of the water and she headbutt me full-force right in the nose. As some of you may know, I had sinus surgery a few months ago, so it hurt like a @#%N*&$! After sobbing like a Bieber fangirl (I’m not, btw), I spent the rest of evening with a terrible headache.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get much relief overnight. If the stone bed photo I posted a couple weeks ago is any clue, you may realize that Korean beds are pretty firm. Very firm. And I have lower back issues. We normally sleep on a Sleep Number air mattress and I have my side cranked all the way down to “hammock” setting. And since Aaron still has issues from his Korean Hercules shoulder injury, there was a lot of mutual groaning and rolling and whispered swearing going on throughout the night.
The kids also seemed to sleep poorly. Lena likes to rotate like clock hands during the night, so Connery woke me up wailing about being pushed off the bed. Both of them had nightmares, and somebody was sleep talking.
Suffice to say, everybody woke up cranky.
The kids’ crankiness continued through our brief stop by Costco (they didn’t have two of the three things we were going for) and the drive home. By the time we reached our apartment, I was in full Grumpypants Mama mode, giving American moms everywhere a bad name in the parking lot. It wasn’t as bad as the time I lost my you-know-what and shot-put Connery’s backpack into the bushes (not my best moment), but let’s be honest… combining kids and travel can be a bit, uh, challenging.
I kinda felt bad about this later, though, once I realized that both kids had high fevers. Oops. We spent the rest of the weekend sitting on the couch watching Aaron play World of Tanks and The Odd 1s Out videos on YouTube (Connery’s new favorite thing).
So, in the end, it was kind of a crappy mini-trip. But, I took a bunch of photos that made it look fabulous…
