Mini-Escape to Busan

I'm doing these posts out of order. I should be writing about Mudeungsan National Park, which is amazing and will get its own post soon, but this weekend, I traveled from my home near the West coast of Korea all the way to Busan on the East coast - and I want to write a quick little post with some photos before I forget all about it.

Let me begin with the bus. First of all, Gwangju bus terminal was crowded (I departed the day before Chuseok - think Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Harvest all rolled into one) but clean, efficient, and easy to navigate. The bus ride (45,000 wan r/t - about $38USD) on a luxury bus with plenty of leg room, reclining seats, and a television playing Korean dramas and Chuseok specials for everyone on board, would only take three hours, including a stop at one of the fancy travel plazas that are dotted along the major highways in Korea. It was a pleasant, cheap, and easy way to travel from one side of the country to the other.

Busan is a port city, so it has all the attractions one would expect: beaches, seafood, large boats, and sea air. Busan had a bit of the port city grit that Baltimore does, but with much more upscale shopping and about 1,000 times as many tourists. The city itself is built on steeply sloping hills, so the landscape is beautiful.

The food is also amazing. Busan has daily ferry service to Japan, so there is a strong Japanese influence on the cuisine. My dinner at a Japanese restaurant included a seafood hotpot that contained a sea snail (a little chewy and flavorless), a giant scallop (deliciously briny and so very different from the sea scallops I've had elsewhere), cockles, clams, shrimp, crab, and a very large, very chewy squid. The broth itself was full of rich umami flavor, with a bit of an acidy finish (from all the greens, perhaps?).

These are the shells left over from the seafood hotpot.

There is also an abundance of street food in Busan (and in Gwangju, too!). The one my friend found too irresistible to just walk by were the little fried dough pockets. The dough was partially cooked, filled with brown sugar, cooked again so the sugar melted, and then opened and filled with shelled sunflower seeds. It was like a stuffed funnel cake and it was delicious!

Fried, stuffed dough

This vendor sold fried sweet potato sticks
and fried silk worms. I am not ready
to eat silkworms...maybe someday
when someone gives me a food travel show -
but that day has not yet come.

Because of the holiday, my friend and I were unable to eat at the Jagalchi Fishmarket, but we did peruse the stalls outside (twice, I was enthralled by the variety of seafood on display). The market is adjacent to the dried fish market - dried fish snacks being very popular in Korea. Side Note: I really want to like dried fish snacks - I mean, I love salt, I love seafood, I love snacks - but dried seafood is a taste I can't wrap my tastebuds around.

I was only in Busan for about 48 hours, and yet, in those 48 hours, my friend and I walked about 15 miles exploring the city and taking it all in - and I didn't even get to the beaches or the mountains (well, I climbed ONE hill up to Busan Tower, but that can't really count, can it?)! I can't wait to go back.