A Trip to Busan

This past weekend I traveled to Busan with Andrew, Steve, Rosie, and Felix.  Busan is a port city located on the southeastern coast of Korea and it's the second largest city in the country.  Andrew and I took the KTX train from Seoul Station to Busan and I'm really glad we did that instead of taking the bus.  The KTX is Korea's high-speed express train.  This thing moves!  We got to Busan in about 2 hours and 30 minutes, while the bus was a 5 hour ride.  The TV monitor on the train told us that we were going 289 km/h, which is about 180 mph!

We got to Busan in no time; the sun was shining and it was really warm out.  We knew the rest of the group wouldn't be arriving for a few more hours so we decided to check out the "world's biggest department store" while we waited.  We hopped on the Busan subway, which was a far smaller and simpler system than Seoul's.  The Shinsegae department store was beautiful, it is indeed certified by the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's largest department store, the Macy's in Herald Square takes second place.

Andrew and I had a lot of fun exploring the place.  There was so much to see on each floor, it was quite overwhelming.  There was an ice skating rink, day spa, and even a driving range.  Once we got word that the group's bus had arrived in Busan, we headed over to the famous fish market to meet them.

The Jagalchi Fish Market in Busan is the Korea's largest fish market and it was definitely worth seeing.  The place was huge!  There were floors and floors of aquariums and vendors and perhaps the coolest thing was seeing the live octopus.  The famous attraction at the fish market is eating "live octopus" at the upstairs restaurants.  The octopus isn't actually still living, but since it's freshly killed, it still moves around the plate.  When Andrew and I had arrived at the market the group had already tried the live octopus.  It was a bummer that they didn't wait for us but what can you do. 

One of the vendors at Jagalchi Fish Market.  All the fish you can imagine!

After the fish market we took a cab to the entrance of the Taejongdae Cliffs.  These cliffs overlook the Korea Straight, which is the water body in between South Korea and Japan.  It is said that on a very clear day you can even see the coast of Japan from the cliffs, however I could not see anything.  We took a tram up to the top and then descended many stairs to get out onto the cliffs.  The sight was beautiful! We could see the Taejongdae lighthouse and an amazing view of the ocean as the sun was setting.

The view of the Taejongdae Cliffs before getting all the way down.

Steve and me on our way down to the cliffs.

Rosie and me as the sun is setting, in the background is the Taejongdae Lighthouse.

After sunset it got quite dark so we left the cliffs and walked around to the other side of the area.  We took a look at some of the memorials that were on the other side of the cliffs and then walked back down to the base.  We jumped on a bus and then met up with Andrew who had decided to do some other stuff around the city.

We were tired and hungry so we decided to look for a motel or a hostel before it got any later.  The group found this sketchy (sketchy is an understatement!) motel outside of Gwangalli (a well-known tourist district in Busan) and decided to take a look.  All the rooms were Korean style, which meant that it was merely a floor with some blankets; no beds, no furniture.  The man flipped on the light to show us the room and cockroaches scattered into the holes in the floor!  No way was I staying there!

We then headed into Gwangalli, which is where the Gwangalli beach is located and a part of the city where a lot of tourists stay.  The beach was beautiful and the area was a lot nice than where we had previously been looking.  We had no problem finding a motel here.  The one the group chose was still sketchy and gross, but it was fine for just one night.

We headed out to the beach and walked through the sand for awhile.  It was so beautiful, even in the dark.  We had an awesome view of the Gwangan Bridge which was all lit up with different colored lights.  We bought some drinks (once again, enjoying the ability to drink legally!) and then headed to the other side of the beach to pick out our fish for dinner!  One of the main attractions of Busan is picking out a fish at a fish market and then having a restaurant skin and bone it for you and then eating it for dinner!

The view of the Gwangan Bridge from the beach. 

At the end of the beach was a huge multi-floored building.  The bottom floor was made up of 20 or 30 different fish vendors, all loud and feisty Korean women trying to sell their fish.  We bargained for a good price from this one vendor and picked out three different fish.  One of them was a flounder, but we're not sure what they other two were.  We paid about 40,000 won for the three fish and then the lady killed them right there in front of us!  She then put them in a basket and we followed her as she led us upstairs to a restaurant on the 5th floor.  Each vendor works for a different restaurant that is in the fish market complex, so depending on who you buy your fish from is the restaurant that you eat at.

The woman that we bought our fish from, she's holding our first selection!

She was just about to kill one of our fish.  Notice my head peaking in on the right, I was trying to get a better look!

The restaurant seated us Korean style, on the floor, and we ate some delicious scallion pancake and salad.  After what seemed like years, our fish was finally served to us on a big platter, all boned and cut up into small pieces.  We had lettuce wraps, rice, sauce, and a bunch of other Korean sides.  The fish was delicious.  It was like a sushi-lettuce wrap combination.  Although I enjoyed it, I much prefer traditional sushi.  Our waiter also brought us a soup which had the rest of the fish in it, including the skeleton and the head.

Steve, me and Andrew with our fish.  The vendor had just brought us upstairs to the restaurant. 

The end product, one of three platters full of raw fish!

After dinner we ventured over to a carnival that was on the beach.  We had a lot of fun watching Felix and Rosie "bullride" and we ended the night riding a big pirate ship ride.  As I'm sure you all can picture, the pirate ship ride is basically a huge boat that swings back and forth.  We were so high up that on the "up" swing that we had a fantastic view of the city!  Exhausted, Andrew and I headed back to the motel shortly after that, we wanted to get up early the next day to see the rest of the city.

Felix and me at the carnival, behind us the epic pirate ship ride.