Yes, ladies and gentlemen, she’s still alive.  :)    I hate February/March in Korea!  The winter gets too long, the weather is crappy, everything outside is dead and ugly.  I hate it.  This morning I woke up to a gorgeous spring day! The sun is shining, cherry blossoms are coming out nicely, birds are chirping.. aaah bliss!  So it’s time for me to get out of this winter hole and start blogging again!

A few weeks ago I went to Busan with some of the newbies from the February 2012 intake.  After a few bumps — bronchitis, slooow taxi and seeing our train depart without us, we finally got to Busan at around noon.  After meeting up with everyone and having lunch and a few drinks, we set out to find the Dragon Dream cave bar.   We took the subway to Seomyeon station on line 1 and took a taxi to the Beomildong District office, across from the Han Sang Green Apartments (about 3000won).  From there we followed the directions as on the City Awesome website.   (Start at picture 6)   “Take the first RIGHT after you see the Borim cinema bus stop.  Then take your first LEFT. The bar/restaurant is on your RIGHT.”  We had a tough time finding the place, but I realize now that we might have made an extra turn…

Before making your way, you should know that it’s not a huge place and it’s more like a magkeolli (Korean rice wine) bar than a restaurant / proper bar.  It really is in a cave though so super cool bonus points there!  We went on a rainy day, so the walls of the cave were wet.   The place is much bigger than I thought.  When you enter, they have a few Korean style tables for bigger parties.  From there you enter the cave.  They have tables along the wall right to the back.  There’s a big dragon statue in water in the corner and if you turn to your right, they have even more tables down that way.  The tables are small – about 4 per table and since everything is rather solid, you can’t move them to add more people if you have a bigger party.  We had to use two tables and it was a bit antisocial, but it was still something new to experience.

 

We ordered the dongdongju, which is similar to Makgeoli and it’s their specialty.  I  personally don’t like magkeoli, but I quite enjoyed the dongdongju!  If you like makgeoli, you’ll definitely like the dongdongju!  It was served in the traditional way – a big pot with smaller bowls for everyone.  We ordered the haemulpajeon (seafood Korean pancake) and it was honestly the best pajeon I’ve had in Korea!   We also got a side dish tofu and kimchi which was amazing!   I can’t remember the exact prices, but we were 7 people, had two pajeons, two bowls of dongdongju and two ciders and paid less than 5,000 each.  Definitely worth it!

This is probably not where you’d hang out every weekend, but it sure is nice to get out of the Gwangalli vibe for a bit.  It’s very different and very laid back, but definitely had fun going there.  I would probably go back for the pajeon!  Do it!