Busan - Summer Vacation Part 3

So, we are at the third city of our trip: Busan (부산). This was very close to Gyeongju so the trip there was very short, which was rather merciful considering how late it was when we were trying to find where our guest house was.

We stayed the night in Chinatown which was an interesting experience to say the least. There was a lot of really cool architecture and art. I went for a little bit of a late night walk and found Busan Station where I happened to stumble upon a really cool water and lights show out front. It was really long though. I sat there and watched it start and eventually, everytime the music changed I started thinking that "Okay, this is it. It's over I can leave now"... then the music would start up again and it kept on going. The breeze of the water was really nice and there were a whole bunch of kids that kept running out to play in the water and kept getting scolded by the security guard there which was entertaining.

We didn't stay long in this area of Busan. The next morning we went to a new section of Busan by Seomyeon Station (서면역) to check into our next guest house. We  spent the rest of the morning wandering around the market district. Our first stop was the port: Jagalchi Fish Market (자갈치시장). It was incredibly extensive with certain parts outdoors and other parts indoors because the fish being sold there required more temperature control. Some of the fish were sold live. Some fish were sold live with someone on standby to make it into sushi while you wait. Other fish were dead and ice, gutted and dried, or even prepared to eat already. The scent of fish was rather strong as you can imagine, but luckily my previous zoo experience got me used to the overwhelming smell of fish so I didn't mind it too much. 

From the fish market we found an International Film Festival road where I had my first ever Hoddeok (호떡), which is a delightful streetfood that is a fried dough-like concoction with caramelized brown sugar and nuts inside. 

Our real goal was a specific area of the big international market called Bupyeong (also known as Kkangtong which means tin can) Market (부평시장 (낑통시장)). Our main destination was the giant section dedicated to used bookstores. We spent a lot of time on the streets that were just completely full of used bookstores. The variety of books that could be found there was incredible. In one store I found a four volume encyclopedia set of fish... in German. I managed to restrain myself and only walked away with one book, which was a book of famous Korean Poetry. Each poem is written in both original Korean and translated into English. It appeared to be part of a set and some of them were illustrated beautifully but considering I barely understand a minuscule amount of Korean I decided to stick with the translated one. 

We took the subway up to the Haeundae beach area of Busan where two more of my co-workers (and good friends) were spending their vacation week. We had lunch together at this little Italian place where the owner gave us free dessert, probably for being foreign and sitting in his restaurant. (I have found that a lot of places like to give obviously foreign customers service like that in hopes of us bringing friends back. There is this one cafe near our apartments that often gives us free size upgrades and/or dessert. One time the owner gave another co-worker an umbrella because it was raining and he didn't have one.)

I went for a walk along the coast because the beach was absolutely mobbed. There was a nice rocky area next to the cliffs though, with a nice walking path. There we found a cool mermaid statue and a lighthouse as well as the APEC building which hosted a world leader convention in 2005. 

Further on up the path some cute cats lured us toward a group of elderly folks who were finishing up eating dinner. They (mostly one ajusshi-a korean gentleman past a certain age) who wanted to tell us all about how his friend's daughter lives in Virginia and how he lived in Santa Barbara for a while. They gave us apple popsicles and we eventually insisted it was time we continued on. We walked around the nearby streets and a little bit along the beach when it was quieter there, before we separated. I took the subway back to the guest house. 

I wish I could have had more time to explore Busan, since it is the second largest city in South Korea and my friend was telling me about the cool temples she visited that were hidden away in the mountains. Those would have been fun to visit. However, out of all of the places I visited on my summer vacation, Busan was probably the least exciting. The feel of the city is very similar to Seoul. It's a large city. Everything is very modernized from the food to the buildings. It was like being in a seaside, Seoul. It was a wonderful place but I think exploring there didn't feel as new an experience as the other cities did because it was so similar to Seoul. The other cities were small enough to have a small town with a long history keeping in touch with their traditions (and this is where words have completely failed me, I apologize), feeling to them that was different from Busan, just like it was differ from Seoul. 

Snapfish Album for Busan