Korea: The Little Soju Mermaid

This story is from a recent trip to Busan, South Korea (a beach town 2.5 hours south of Seoul) where we encountered mermaids, soju, and soju mermaids.

On our first morning in Busan, Tania and I decided to walk to the mermaid statue at the end of the beach in front of our hotel. Seemed like an easy activity that wouldn’t be too stressful and was appropriate to our level of jet lag. We thought it would be nice to walk along the shore and feel the Korean ocean between our toes.

It was not nice.

First, the statue was much further than it looked. The shoreline was steep and we should have had snow shoes for the deep sand. Our struggles were amplified by the heat and humidity. While we know hot in California, we aren’t familiar with humid hot. We were drenched in sweat within seconds.

I’ll have the Hot, Jet Lag Morning, please.

Would you like to add Stifling Humidity to that for just a dollar more?

Sure, yeah, that sounds good, let’s really fuck this up.

By the time we reached the mermaid we were lopsided, fagged out, and slick with sweat. Tania was over it and sat down on a bench in the shade. Her body language said: fuck mermaids. I continued to be drawn to the mythical creature on the rocks, it’s true what they say, and plodded up the stairs to the mermaid viewing area.