13 March 2015
Worlds biggest
The enormous illuminated roof of Busan
It was raining a little tonight, so it was time to head out to see some of the worlds biggest things. One of them a big building, and another the biggest roof, both of which probably meant I wouldnt be in the rain.
More on the biggest things in the big pictures below.
Now to talk about Korean girls, and their need to look at themselves, all the time.
I constantly see them looking at themselves on their phone using the front facing camera. Not just a glance, not just every now and then, but constantly, and continuously. I am talking 5 minutes straight, zoom, all angles, some kind of app that changes things, live streaming to cloud so you can watch a replay of your face later.
This behaviour is only for girls (women), boys (men) play games.
Now the location you are in has no impact on this behaviour either, crossing the busy street, on the train, eating your dinner in fancy restaurant, going up the escalator, on top of a mountain.
In related news but involving a guy instead of a girl, I saw a guy walk up to a urinal playing his phone one handed, but then he needed both hands to slay the dragon at the end of level 9, no problem. No interruption to stream detected.
The subway comes out at basement level 3 of the Shinsegae store at Centrum city, which is a great food court, a bit different from the others, many choices.
There was a store devoted to puffer fish, in all its forms. The worlds biggest puffer fish specialty food court restaurant.
Up on level 4, and its the worlds biggest ice skating rink built on top of a subway station.
I think the entire monolithic building used to be filled with retail, but times are tough, some of the 'store' is now the training centre for employees. Other parts that are off limits are a private spa, gym, driving range.
Thats not to say the place isnt enormous, there are 9 starbucks stores within the store.
One of the corners where theres little specialty stores, mainly featuring crushed molluscs you can either rub on your face or eat, or rub on your face then eat, whilst looking at yourself on your phone.
Without a doubt, the worlds largest pirate ship and crystal skull rooftop playground.
The rooftop garden was just me, enjoying the view, in the rain. It was very warm though.
The worlds largest rooftop dinosaur park and African safari zoo.
My dinner was up on the 9th floor, and surprisingly, given the reputation for Shinsagae to be super expensive, it was only $10.
It looks like bibimbap, but it was advertised as a mushroom hotpot, which it largely is, the picture had different vegetables, but they added the regular kind.
Plenty of delicious pickled side dishes though, and I really like the concept of add your own pepper sauce, that way I can just be stupid about it and add it all.
Whats going on with this pencil?
I did my best to photograph it, but we will struggle for scale. The central bit is 14 storeys, but the place is a cube, and goes far undergroud.
The cars in the foreground here are a long way from the store.
If you look closely at the much smaller Lotte store next to it, you can see the stair cases on its right edge.
This area is called Centrum city, a different area to this mornings future city, although still partially owned by Donald Trump.
Now we move onto the worlds biggest cinema / outdoor cinema, roof, LED display. This structure is just stupidly impressive, built for the Busan international film festival thats on each year. I cant fit all of the angled roof in the shot.
In this photo, I have gone back as far as I can, but cant get the whole place in. For perspective, if you look just to the bottom left of the cinema screen, you can see a lady in an orange jacket.
And now the greatest shot of all. This is at least 100 metres long, and changes pattern constantly like the Rundle lantern in Adelaide.
The statue is a giant eagle on its side. Look closely at the centre of the photo, thats the stadium seating.
There is still more of that roof behind me too.
I now need it to stop raining so I can go to the mountain tomorrow, forecast says sun, but I fear mud!