Today we have a lot of plans, so we wanted to make sure not to leave too late. Unfortunately, we still haven’t figured out how to make our morning routine super efficient, so after getting ready, tidying up, and locking up our valuables, we left around 10:00am.
We decided to make our way towards another market, Gukje Market. We took a subway towards Ohori park, thought we would cut through the park to get to the market, but when we got towards the entrance saw it was up a huge hill and then several flights of stairs to even enter, and as we already were feeling the effects of the humidity, decided to preserve our energy and walk around. We eventually arrive at an entrance to Gukje market. Unlike the market yesterday, this one seemed to be more goods than foods. There were shops selling pots and pans, carpets, pillows, electronics, some small trinkets and souvenirs, and plenty of other things. This was a huge market laid on a gridlike pattern. There were so many streets to go down, seemingly grouped by type of good being sold. There weren’t many people walking around at all, and most who were seemed to be Korean. Now, yesterday we thought we were being stared at quite a bit. Today ABSOLUTELY confirmed it. Shopkeepers, people passing – absolutely everyone very comfortably and very forwardly were staring at us. We didn’t know what to make of this, checking eachother for stains, ripped clothing, or anything else. We are pretty sure it is because we aren’t Korean, but we don’t know enough about their culture to know what sentiment comes with the staring. We spent some good time perusinv, but while it was supposed to be a nicer and more mild day than yesterday, the humidity was pushing 90%. It was one of the most miserable, uncomfortable physical feelings since starting our trip, with absolutely no moisture from either our bodies or the moist air evaporating from our skin and clothing. Though brutal, we kept positive and accepted it.
After walking for just under 2 hours, we were feeling a bit exhausted, so we decided it was time to get some food. We struggled some to find a good place to eat nearby us, but eventually Caitlyn found a place that seemed good and appeared to have standard options like bulgogi and cooked meats. We are unsure if we went to the wrong place or if their menu has just changed drastically, but we were certainly wrong. We walk in and are greeted by a few friendly people who work there, grabbing us a seat and pointing at some Korean writing on the wall. We translate it and see it is a menu. Unfortunately, it only had a few options. Most were raw fish (we felt like we had our share in Japan), and one dish otherwise: Chueo-tang…AKA: mudfish soup. It turns out is it made from ground up mudfish, which is a type of pond loach. It is described as “a minty or an all spice taste and at times the bite can be a little gritty, ground up fish after all”. We decided to give it a go and share one bowl, as they had delivered the sides by the time we got to look at the menu, and we figured we should continue to explore new things. They were very polite and seemed quite excited for us to try the soup. The sides were fairly standard, and all good, but the tofu was a little bitter. The soup came out, full of different leafy vegetables and many unidentifiable ingredients. The taste was…not bad. It was very earthy, without much salt or other flavor-enhancing herbs or spices. We did not notice a grittiness at all, though. We ate as much as possible, but probably only finished half of the soup, as our palates were struggling with it. We paid, and went back out to finish a few more stretches of the market.
Funny enough, the next sections were where all of the food was located. We walked around and saw plenty of tempura, some sticks of meat, Dumplings, scallion pancakes, and lots of fried hotdogs with other ingredients (Koreans love hotdogs. Half of them offer cheese inside the deep fried breading as well). We were still a bit hungry, but didn’t want to eat too much. We eventually found a vendor with small scallion pancakes, so we bought one and he pointed us back to a small seating area. A woman delivered us two cups of broth to sip on in the meantime, which was delicious. The pancake comes out which was accompanied with a soy/vinegar sauce. The pancake had a great vegetable base, was only lightly fried, and went perfectly with the sauce.
We kept walking when eventually Caitlyn spots more of the glazed strawberries in a stick, just like in Japan!! She buys one and excitedly bit in. Sadly, it was a little too frozen and hard to eat (though not as bad as the last one that was hard as a rock). It thawed quickly, being a hot day, but they were still not quite the same as that first time in Tsukiji market. Caitlyn realized she was chasing a dragon that we would never catch, and we decided that it would probably be the last.
We weren’t far from another destination on our sightseeing list, BIFF Square, so we started walking that direction. BIFF Square apparently stands for Busan International Film Festival, though apart from some plaques on the ground with handprints possibly from famous actors and actresses, we aren’t super sure of the reasoning behind the name. It seemed cool; it was pretty walkable with a lot of shops and restaurants. We didn’t explore the whole area, as there wasn’t much going on at this time. We grabbed some waters from a convenience store to rehydrate, and walked into the Jalgachi fish market.
This came highly recommended, so we were really excited to check it out. The outdoor street of the market was a thin walking street lined with hundreds of small roofed stalls. Each had tanks of sea water full of every kind of fish in the ocean. Bendors (mostly older women) were usually butchering and cleaning fish behind the stall, or yelling at you as you go past “eat lunch?!” “Take, go upstairs!” From our research we knew that nearby was a building where they could prepare your raw fish you just purchased from outside the market or on the first floor of the market. We didn’t know pricing well and weren’t super hungry, so we kept politely saying “no” as we passed. It should be noted that all of the stalls have a pump from the ocean into the tank and one from the tank into the street and down the drains, meaning it is a sport to avoid the splashes of dirty ocean water and the puddles as you try to navigate along the street. Caitlyn began to wonder if open toed shoes was a bad idea. We got towards the end of the outdoor area and checked a map, seeing that the Jagalchi market building was very close.
We found the building and saw that the first floor was just like the outdoor market, but indoors. We walked all around the floor, gawking at the enormous crabs, lobsters, oysters, eels, and fish. We decided to head up and see what kinds of food and pricing they offered.
There were a few stalls that didn’t seem to sell food, but rows of tables interspersed all had menus standing up. Plenty of people tried to get us to sit and order food as we walked around, doing their best to be a passionate and almost forceful salesman. We decided to check one menu out, but it was almost tricky as the woman kept flipping the pages and trying to show us items we had no interest in. The prices were really high, so we said “no” and walked a bit further, deciding to pick up another menu. It turns out the entire floor is the same menu, which is a little confusing, but we eventually relented and searched for one of the cheaper dishes as we wanted to try some of this super fresh seafood.
We settled on grilled octopus, and the woman ushered us to a table. She brought out a few very strange sides: a bowl of peanuts in the shell, two large pieces of some unidentified root, some kimchi and some fresh cabbage. Looking around, everyone was having a beer, a soju, or in one man’s case both. We decides to grab a beer and a soju to share and waited for our grilled octopus. It arrived, in whole but gutted and without the beak, looking and smelling delicious. Our server brings us some tongs and kitchen shears and we get to work cutting it to pieces. There was no seasoning on it, and it absolutely didn’t need any. The natural taste was amazing. It was cooked perfectly, and we enjoyed every last bite while we sat and, of course, worked on our blog some. We left around 2:45 and worked out how to navigate to the Gamcheon Culture Village.
The culture village is a neighborhood of colorful houses built on the side of a mountain. We check our Naver Maps app and learn that this time we will take our first bus ride in Busan. We find the bus stop with no huge difficulty, but we didn’t know what we were in for. It turns out that riding the bus in Busan is a life or death experience. Luckily ours was life. The speed at these buses go at, the rapid breaking and accelerating, and whipping around corners was something neither of us have ever experienced. People were barely able to keep up on their feet as we navigated this hilly and winding journey. We eventually get near where we think our stop is, and a young boy in school confirmed that the culture village is at the stop. We hop off, kiss the ground beneath our feet, and try to work our way towards the village. It did not take long, as the Gamcheon Culture Village is an enormous, vividly bright area that would be impossible to miss. We began to head down the road towards it, stopping by a shop with a scenic overlook promoting tourists of the village to take in the sights and snap pictures. They also had an adorable golden retriever named honey jar that they called “jar”. We enjoyed 10 or 15 minutes here before starting again downwards, only briefly, before finding an information building.
They advised us that this is not the best road to start on, but if we go one street over there is a beautiful 40 minute path deep into the village and many beautiful overlooks. We enjoyed walking through this area, marveling at the bright houses and painted stairways, and always enjoying seeing the cute street cats.
We walked for about 20 minutes before one of the many cafe-style restaurants along the way advertised “honeycomb icecream”. We grabbed a cone to share, which was a delicious looking vanilla ice cream with a massive piece of honeycomb placed on the side and honey from the cone drizzled in top. Neither of us eat ice cream often, but this was absolutely amazing. The honeycomb was so delicious and the waxy texture was great with the creamy ice cream.
We sat on the step in front of the shop and ate it before walking another 15 minutes or so before getting to the endpoint of the suggested path. We were greeted witu a beautiful view of the ocean just to the side of the village. It was surprising how quick the journey was, as we had expected the 40 minute time given to us to mean 40 minutes of continuous walking, not lazily sauntering down the street. We turned around and went back the same way we had come, getting back to the main road before searching for another death machine…I mean bus…to take us towards the next area.
We reluctantly hopped on a bus, which was just as crazy as the first one. Gripping the metal handrails so hard that we almost bent the metal, we eventually get to our transfer stop. We decide to check out a street nearby before hopping on the final line, but there really wasn’t much going on. Back into the third bus, we have an additional surprise of an emergency braking when a scooter decided that he wanted the right of way. We finally got to Songdo Bay Station for the next activity – taking a cable car over the ocean to a mountain at the end of a peninsula.
We arrive at the station and find that we can either get a standard ticket for a car or pay ~$2.5USD more per ticket and have a glass bottom car. We decide to save the money (though David secretly thinks Caitlyn was too nervous to be able to look down after how freaked out she was in Miyajima on the cablecar), getting 2 standard round trip tickets. We get in a line that has quite a few people ahead of us, and see signs saying max 8 people per car. Thankfully, they were not actually very busy and were giving every group their own car! We finally board and begin the journey over the ocean and upwards.
It was absolutely beautiful, having immaculate views of both Busan, the mountains, the bay, and the open ocean. We had been hoping to have this view as the sun was setting, but timing didn’t make sense. We were still very happy as we could see so much with how clear the weather was at this time.
We arrived at the top in about 10 or 15 minutes, disembarking and heading into the station. The first floor had a few small restaurant booths, very similar to what you’d see at a carnival. The food was also similar to what you’d expect at a carnival: Korean corn dogs (of course some with cheese inside) as well as a dish that seemed to be Korea’s answer to mozzarella sticks. We have refused to subject our bodies to this ever since spotting the first one a few days back, but it appears to be some type of pancake-esque bread filled completely on the inside with a stringy mozzarella type cheese, and then grilled or fried. I’m sure it is tasty, but this crosses a line of indulgence that neither of us want to be near. There were a few other foods similar to these, but we weren’t hungry and weren’t interested in any fried foods like these. Just outside the station is a large park area filled with dozens of various sculptures. There were full scale animatronic dinosaurs, a wall made to look like a dragon that shot mist out of its mouth, a panda bear, and so much more. We checked all of this out before heading down a downwards sloping road to see what else there was. We realized that this path was taking us to a cool lookout that we had seen from the sky that juts out off of the mountain and hangs over the ocean. Sadly, it closed early and the gates were shut and locked. We spent some time enjoying the view, anyways, before going back up.
There appeared to be a path just past the dinosaurs through the forest, but when we turned around to look at the station, we saw a giant gorilla statue looking down from the rooftop. We decided to instead go into the building and see if we could get onto the roof. Thankfully, an elevator took us straight to the top. The roof had just as many sculptures and things to look at as the outdoors area. There was a large biplane sculpture that you could sit in, statues of people holding their hands out like they were taking photos or selfies where you could place your phone on a timer for pictures, and tons of others. We floated around, appreciating the art and the view of the city from the top of the building. It turns out that we actually lucked out and while the trip up was in full daytime, there was enough to keep us busy that it was almost sunset.
We went back downstairs and began to board just as the sun was setting. We got to watch the sun disappear for the first hang of our ride, and even got to have Busan at Night for the latter half.
We had seen so many beautiful lights around the harbor that seemed like fun places to check out, so we headed there when we got off.
It was mostly seafood restaurants with inflated prices, so we searched for some more reasonably priced seafood and found a place a busride away. We must have just missed the bus, as they tend to come very frequently, but we had to wait for about 15 minutes. This ride was slightly better, but we were still holding on to anything we could to stay vertical. Finally off, we find the restaurant and enter. A very sweet older lady greets and seats us. There is only a Korean menu, but she does her best to help us pick our meal. We were going to go with a chili crab soup dish, but she showed us that for just slightly more we could get a set meal that comes with the crab as well as beef shortrib. She delivers the sides shortly after, which were all incredible. Interestingly, the last side she actually asks us if we want. We haven’t had this before, but upon looking in the dish and seeing what looked like pan-fried grubs, we understood why she asked. Usually we would take on a new food, but we weren’t feeling very brave and declined. We later learned that these are actually some kind of dried silkworms! It isn’t long until she delivers a giant, bubbling pot of a beautiful red soup loaded with tons of different pieces of crab. She tells us to open the shells by hand and eat the meat, and then sip some of the broth. She quickly runs away and returns with plastic gloves for our hands to keep clean. We start going to town on the crab, which was already pre-cracked as to make our jobs easier. The crab was delicious and the soup was very tasty with a mild spice. There were lots of tasty vegetables in the soup as well. Pretty soon after digging into the crab, she comes over with a bib for Caitlyn to help prevent any stains on her shirt. She even put the bib on Caitlyn because her gloves were messy with crab, which was so sweet! The shortrib came out next, which had plentiful thin slices of delicious, nicely cooked meat. Caitlyn went to try to take her gloves off, but was struggling a little, so the little old lady came over and helped her take the gloves off! We wanted to adopt her at this point, but we’re pretty sure we’d have trouble filling out the South Korean adoption paperwork using only Google Translate. We finish our meal and the food coma began to hit hard.
We were reasonably close to BIFF square, so we headed back to check it out at night time. It was an entirely different place than when we saw it earlier. People everywhere drinking, laughing, hanging with friends, and shopping. Food stalls were absolutely everywhere, selling fried foods, grilled fish, soups, noodles, and just about anything under the sun. One of our favorite sights was 3 clearly drunk businessmen linking arms, clearly trying to keep eachother up, while giggling like schoolgirls. We walked a little while before Caitlyn noticed an Under Armour shop, which we decided to stop in to buy some extra boxer briefs. While Caitlyn packed 2 weeks of clothes, David packed only one week, and we figured it’s best to be extra prepared especially as we don’t know if we will continue to have our lucky streak of readily available laundry.
We walked a little longer until we decided it was time for bed, so we got on the subway and headed back and went to sleep.
Caitlyn’s thoughts of the day: it is very confusing to figure out the intended way of eating things in Korea. Restaurant owners will try to gesture to us to explain it, but we just do our best!
David’s thoughts of the day: I know we mentioned it, but the bus drivers really don’t have any respect for human life. On one of the rides, I had to prevent a little lady from falling backwards. Also, older Korean women LOVE visors. I tried to find a picture that demonstrates this, and found this comically accurate drawing:
Steps walked: 26,083
Miles walked: 12.33
Bluming Travelers 