Dynamic Busan

Last Monday (um, I'm a bit behind on my blogging so I'm referring to Monday October 5th) I went to Busan to spend the day and explore.

Some background:

Busan is the once place in South Korea that I have already visited. Back in the summer of 2004 when I did Semester at Sea we traveled all around Asia including a short stop in Busan, South Korea. I loved my experience there and it was much of the reason I am here today.

Background part 2:

Many cities in Korea have these brand names/nicknames attached to them. Suwon, for example, is "Happy Suwon" and there are signs everywhere that say Happy Suwon. Personally, I like that I live in the "happy" city. There is also Hi Seoul, Colorful Daegu, Fly Incheon, and Dynamic Busan. There is some controversy about why these cities have these names attached to them and the accuracy of them all. Is Suwon really any happier than Busan? Is Deagu really anymore colorful than the rest?

When I arrived in Busan I went straight to the tourist information center in the train station for an English map. On the map it says that you can do a city bus tour for only w10,000. I thought that would be fun and a good idea until I realized that all the stops on the tour were basically on the one subway route. True I would be underground instead of beneath it but eh. I bought at w3,500 day-pass and set sail for my own version of the Busan Bus Tour.

The first stop was the fish market. It was 10am and I knew that the best action was early in the morning at about 6am but I figured it would still be worth going and checking out. It was practically closed by 10am so now I know to go earlier or not at all.

I found the baby octopus quite disturbing.

I wandered a bit more around that area and then by noon I was ready for lunch. On the map there was an area called "Food Alley" and I thought that if there was anywhere in the city I should eat, that would be it.

This is Food Alley. Each umbrella is another street food vender.

I chose to eat at this place because there were a decent amount of people inside and the woman out there was making fresh noodles. It's pretty amazing to see them making fresh pasta right in front of you.

The restaurant was a small hole-in-the-wall type place but it was very busy. I took my time eating because as a solo tourist I had to real place to rush off too. I did notice that everyone else was eating really quickly and I felt a little bad for sitting there for longer than the other patrons.

When went to pay for my noodle soup the guy told me that it was w30,000. I stood there in utter disbelief. That's $25! There was no way that my meal was $25. I just stood there dumbfounded trying to figure out what to do. He didn't seem to understand why I wasn't paying either. Another lady came up and handed him a 5-note to which she received w2,000 in change. Ohhhh! It's not w30,000 it is w3,000! The $2.50 is much more like it. Actually, that's a hell of a deal. Normally those things are 5,000 or 6,00o won (between $4.30 and $5.15). I paid and then left.

But oh my! When I left there was a line out the door. I think I picked the best place to eat on all of food alley.

After lunch I went in search of the Ginseng Market which was the next stop on my pseudo subway tour. I couldn't quite tell if I was going in the right direction or not so I asked a random guy who was sitting on the sidewalk smoking a cigarette if I was going the right way. He didn't know so he asked another random set of guys walking towards us. They studied the map for a moment (which was all in English and a bit hard for them to decipher) and then decided that they would help me find the market.

These two men walked about 15-minutes with me in the opposite direction they were heading just so that I could find this market. Koreans will always help you if you are lost and it's so mind-boggling. One guy was really excited to help me find this place, the other looked so pissed at his friend (or possibly co-worker?) for having to show me this marketplace. oops.

Well I made it to the market which was just like all the other Korean markets and there really wasn't even much more ginseng than anywhere else either. Lots of fish and spices of course. I would have bought some ginseng candy if I found it but I didn't. Instead I bought some freshly made sweet red bean thingies that are my favorite.

I also took a picture of this woman:

I think she wanted me to buy her cabbage, but I didn't.

Oh Busan, you are so dynamic.

After that I went to the beach and thereby ended my Faux Official Tour because once you are at the beach it's hard to want to go to the city again. I ended up talking to a guy from Barcelona, Spain because he came up to me and asked if he could sit down. This guy was 31 years old and en route on a year-long trip around the world. He would spend about 2 weeks in Korea and then move on to China. He started in Japan and would end up in the US. He had no real timeline and was just going by the seat of his pants. He was impressed with me being a teacher and I was impressed with his round the world travels. Isn't it funny how we all find different things more impressive/difficult/worthy of admiration?