Monday, August 15. Last day in Tokyo! Yumiko's brother stopped by in the morning to see us off.
It was really nice of him to take all our luggage to the train stations in his van, so everyone else could walk to the station without having to drag it all there.
We got unloaded at the station, schlepped everything up to the platform and onto the train, got to the airport, picked up Lisa's last suitcase (shipped directly to the airport by kind folks in the Sendai Mission office), and got through check-in and immigration, and then we were on our way.
We got to the Gimhae Airport outside of Busan and through immigration and customs there.
We hung out for a while and then Andrew showed up, so we were all back together again (with lots of luggage)!
Andrew got us on the right bus and we drove through Busan.
As we went, it started to rain. By the time we got to the stop at Busan Station, it was really pouring down.
We got off, got our luggage, and ducked into the underground area around the subway station. We got oriented, found one umbrella, put some plastic on Rachel's suitcase (which was the least waterproof), and made a dash for the hotel. It was only a hundred yards or so away, but we got thoroughly soaked, but ourselves and our bags. Even the hard-shelled luggage got a lot of water inside through the zippers. It was one of the hardest rainstorms I've ever seen.
We made it to the hotel, found our rooms, and started drying out.
Our room overlooked the plaza in front of Busan station, so we got front row seats, so to speak, for a procession and some festivities going on below. More on that later.
After a while we got ourselves dried out, and the rain stopped, and we ventured out for some food. We walked in front of Busan Station...
... to a nearby restaurant that Andrew had picked out. It is fairly popular and well-known, and we had to stand in line for about 15 minutes to get in.
Andrew ordered us some really good pork soup.
On the way back to the hotel, the festivities in the plaza were in full swing. We figured out later that August 15 was the day WWII ended, and so it was a commemoration of that. There were various presentations going on on the stage, and hundreds of people there watching. (That's our hotel on the left.)
They also had a really cool fountain going, and lots of people were running through it and playing in the water. We stood and watched for a while.
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