Busan.
We sampled a few culinary delights in South Korea’s second largest city, but couldn’t quite bring ourselves to eat live octopus.
- Gamcheon Culture Village.
Although superficial and created for tourists I like the story behind Gamcheon Culture Village. After the Korean War refugees fled there and it became a relatively poor neighbour. The government initiated a project with local artists to create murals and paint the houses bright colours to bring tourists (and money) into the area. And it worked! The place is full of tourists queuing up to get the best insta-shot.
My main highlight was the sock shop. Because Koreans take their shoes off before entering a room, quirky socks have become super trendy. We saw loads in Seoul but this shop was huge and all socks were KRW1,000 (£0.69) a pair. Finally a decent souvenir to take home.
2. Yonggungsa Temple.
Yonggungsa temple is famous for being the only Buddhist temple set by the sea in Korea.
Along with the stone and gold buddhas surrounding the temple, there are small monk figurines in the rock-side which worshipers leave when their wishes have come true.
3. Food.
Most menus (outside of Seoul) are written in Korean making working out what you’re eating a little tricky. Luckily the English speaking Koreans are more than happy to help explain what’s on the menu!
Korean BBQ. With everything in Korean we handed our waiter what our hostel had kindly written out for us (bbq soy pork) and smiled, with no idea what to expect. Thankfully the lady working there babied us through the whole thing, even snipping the (very little) grizzle off the meat for us. It came with a LOT of sides: tofu, spring onion sesame salad, kimchi, potato salad, mushrooms and pickles. She taught us the traditional way to eat Korean bbq meat: wrapped up in a lettuce leaf with a perilla leaf, garlic, spicy sauce, onion and chilli (called ‘Samgyeopsal’). It was delicious.
Cold Noodle Soup. Slightly different, ‘Naengmyeon’ is a Korean delicacy made of noodles in an icy cold broth. As in, the broth has slushy consistency. Bizarrely, it was served with a teapot of warm broth on the side to drink from a mug. Tom swears down it’s the worst thing he’s ever eaten.
4. Gwangalli & Haeundae Beaches.
The beaches in Busan are a tad different to Europe, surrounded by high rises they reminded me of Hong Kong.
Haeundae beach had clearly made it on the tourist bus route with coach loads of people wondering around!
5. Jung-gu.
BIFF street food. Lots of different types of street food, we tucked into some Korean fried chicken in a delicious sauce.
Bosu Book Street. Organised chaos. A lovely little street to wonder down, god knows how anyone finds a book in any of the bookshops (regardless of how neatly they’re tied together!).
We visited Busan in November 2018.
