Jiemei: A Twosome Place (Also Known as the Face Shop)

Busan, Korea! After joining Jie for a weekend, we decided that it comes down to these highlights (aka perfect city for girls and ideal setting for a Korean Drama or dates). Here is what stood out:

Adorable cafes on every block that make you want to sit there the whole afternoon and hang out with your date or best friend while sipping coffee and eating cake
An obsession with white skin - as a result, there is an abnormally large number of skincare product shops, and girls have white faces that are several shades lighter than their necks (this was somewhat of a shock in the beginning),
Catchy kpop songs playing everywhere that make you want to dance around
Abundance of bakeries and dessert shops (Paris Baguette! Ops! Tous les Jours!)
Trend of feminine looking guys in skincare advertisements
A love for hot dogs of all kinds
Sensational spas
Enterprising sales people who try to sell raincoats on the subway (this turned out to be quite necessary as Jie found out during the typhoon that came after Mei left

Details and play by play of the weekend!

Jie and Mei were reunited on the other side of the pond in September! As luck would have it, Mei relocated to Beijing in August for a few months, and Jie had a conference in Busan, Korea so it was decided that we would make a weekend adventure out of it.

Jie met Mei at Busan's Gimhae airport Friday night and we had no trouble finding each other. Mei loved breezing through immigration without a visa and getting away from the massive crowds that she's gotten used to be around at all times in big, bad Beijing.

We didn't want to take any chances this late at night, so we took a cab to the hotel. Of course, language was a problem, but our hotel was in a central enough location for both parties to figure out what each other meant. Our hotel was indeed centrally located, right next to the Busan Station. It was also really neat, clean and compact with helpful tips in the room, such as placing big pieces of luggage under your bed. We decided that a benefit of having small people living in a country is most definitely the energy and space savings!

Nice tip for us

Mei in front of the door. Perfectly size for little people like us!

The first line of order was getting some food! Jie had just arrived from a 14 hour flight, so she was famished. Not to worry, the best part about Asia is that there is food everywhere! We were pleasantly welcomed by the sight of 24-hour convenience stores lighting up the streets in Busan as well. Although it was drizzling outside, we dashed over to the convenience store next to our hotel.

The selection was similar to what you'd find at a 7-11 in Taiwan.. as in, there was EVERYTHING! We spent a good 15 minutes just peering at the cute beverages, snacks and ready-made food. How can you resist drinking chocolate milk when there is Doraemon on the packaging??

Jie found the instant noodle shelf and decided to be like one of the locals. There was a hot water machine and a counter facing the glass window for people to slurp their noodles and gaze outside, just like in a Korean drama! (well, kind of). There was also a microwave where Jie was extremely amused when she saw others heat up their instant coffee packages. We've seen boxed wine at Target, but never packaged heatable coffee. Maybe that's the next new fad!

Mei even found boxed blueberry cheesecake in the refrigerated section. I tell you, there was everything in that 10ft x 10ft space.

The next day was drizzling, but we headed out anyways after a breakfast of rice, kimchee and hot dogs (they do love hot dogs here in Asia) for a city tour of Busan!

We got off at Shinsigae Centum City, the largest department store in the world and after wandering around the high-end stores for a bit, decided to head over to Spa Land and get a true Korean spa experience.

Jie in front of Shinsigae Centum City

Mei in front of the entrance to Spa Land

The spa was massive and had a great system going on where you are given a unique number which sends you to a specific locker which can only open if it is the number you're assigned to. The key to the locker gives you access to the spa and also serves as a charge card if you purchase anything inside. This meant we didn't have to bring any cash with us! After storing our clothes and changing into the spa outfits they gave us, we headed out to the outdoor foot spa where there was a large heated pool set up for people to dip their feet in and seats all around so you can have a conversation while getting your feet soaked. Other areas included a separate bathing section for men and women, and co-ed sauna rooms, each with different themes and temperatures. Jie and I had a relaxing time hopping from sauna to sauna and sweating out our toxins. Definitely a nice thing to do on a rainy day!

Jie and I at the foot spa

Inside of Spaland where you could just relax and lounge around

Themed sauna

After spa-ing, we decided to go downstairs and check out the foodcourt. There was an elaborate order system set up to buy tickets for food at a ticket counter, and each customer was given a digital machine which would show when your order was ready. High tech!

Cute buns in the food hall

Successfully ordered food!

In the afternoon, Jie and Mei embarked on some skincare shopping. This was the highlight:

Yes, you better believe it

For dinner, we swung by Jagalchi market and headed to the street across from it where we had heard would be an area with good streetfood. But first a visit to the famous market:

Great views of the ocean! Unfortunately it was raining

After walking around, we finally found an alley lined with cute Korean shops and filled with a couple of food stands selling pretty much the same thing. This made it easy, so we picked what seemed to be a popular stall and ordered the leek pancake and panfried dumplings. It might have been because of our hunger or the rain, but this was the most delicious meal of the trip!

We followed up with a waffle dessert at a coffeeshop so Jie wouldn't fall asleep from jetlag:

We stopped by the convenience store again and realized Koreans really do have a fascination with hot dogs

The next day, we headed to another coffeeshop since it was raining (again!!). This one looked like it was directly out of a Korean drama. It even had a fitting title - a Twosome Place! We had a hard time figuring out whether 'twosome' referred to 'two people' or the fact that you can get a 'cake + sandwich' there.