Busan, South Korea

 

Friday 26^th September. Busan, South Korea

Opened the curtains this morning to see a very cosmopolitan city, Busan. Many bright and shiny towers, another cruise ship at the terminal and a lot of hustle and bustle. Our plans withered in the heat, Port number 4 in as many days is far beyond what we’re accustomed to, 2 port days in a row is as much has been asked of us in the past. So, suck it up and join the Princess supplied shuttle bus into an area of Busan that is close to many sights and attractions. $US20 pp return for about a 15 minute ride to the Stanford Inn Hotel, but in a very pimped out coach. So different to yesterday!

I’ve got a few plans in mind, although we made it to most of them, it was all a bit of a disappointment. First up was the BIFF (Busan International Film Festival). Not sure how it came to be called that, there was a bench with a fibreglass Simpsons family sitting and you could sit amongst them for a photo, we walked past a section of footpath that had handprints and names like the Hollywood walk of fame, but we had no idea of who they were. Many street food stalls along the way and we could have been tempted had it been later in the day.

I’d read about the Gukje markets which started life as a flea market with vendors selling 2^nd hand wares of all sorts, but in the years since it started, it’s morphed into a series of more established businesses selling anything and everything, mostly sectioned off by type. There was an electrical alley, plumbing, cookware, catering and hospitality supplies and more. Interesting to look at but not to buy. Not what I expected.

Next on the list was the Bosu Book Street, again, sounded interesting, but when you see it, not so much. Again, something that started off small with one couple selling 2^nd hand magazines and books to eek out a living. ‘There’s some murals up the stairs’ I read. Always a sucker for a nice mural, we start climbing the stairs, although they’re more like temple steps. IYKYK. A café with a bright yellow door about halfway up doesn’t open for another hour. Shame about that, it would have been a good spot to stop and catch our breath. We soldiered on up the stairs, in the hope of seeing these wonderful murals. Vincent van Gogh, the self portrait with a bit of starry night in the background. Interesting choice and totally unexpected. And probably not worth risking the heart attack climbing the stairs! On the way back down, the café owner was outside the gate, sweeping leaves, getting ready to open. We had a bit of a chat, but he didn’t invite us in early.

Maybe we’ll do better at the Jagalchi fish markets? Some nice fresh seafood for lunch. It’s a huge market downstairs, selling all the fresh fish, so fresh it’s still swimming and upstairs, yes more damn stairs, is the place for eating. By the time we got up there, I felt sick, certainly didn’t want to eat, but the woman kept flipping the pages in the menu, telling us all about it. I need to sit! I really can’t stand the thought of eating, I’m so hot. Probably just as well, the prices were ridiculous, clearly the local tourist trap. One serve of grilled shrimp was 40,000 won and a serve of grilled scallops was 60,000 won. Around $AU100!

After a bit of recovery time, we set off again, this time for an air condtioned shopping centre, Lotte department store. There’s an observation deck on the thirteenth floor, clearly not superstitious about the number 13. Eventually we find it and it’s barren and baking hot so we don’t hang around for long. Back down on the ground floor is apparently the largest musical water fountain in the world. I think they just threw in the music to claim the title, because a similar sized one we saw in Singapore didn’t have music. It was actually worth seeing and we were lucky to be there for the show. On the hour, every hour.

We found somewhere to eat lunch. It amazes me the number of people who go back to the ship for lunch. There was a restaurant and out the front was a picture of a plate of tempura, so we went in and were given menus. Someone was going to come back and take our order, but with the help of the pictures in the menu, we were able to order what we wanted on the tablet at the table, even though it was all in Korean. I think the staff were impressed. My lunch was a rice bowl topped with 10 different tempura things. One of them was a soft boiled egg! Mind blown! Who thought of that? The other things were a shrimp, some lotus root, green chili (skipped that), a clump of enoki mushrooms, a leaf that the staff said was catnip, a cup mushroom, a piece of squid, nori, and thin slices of pumpkin. Amazing! I was curious about the catnip so I looked it up and I don’t think what I had was catnip.

Probably looking at a 10 min walk in the heat, and another 10 min wait for the shuttle, so we head off to the meeting point.

Back to the ship to download photos and use the land based wi fi while we still have it.