Surfing the Korean Wave: Days 8, 9 and 10 - The wife 1, me nil in the Kaohsiung of Korea*

Even her photos are better than mine 

Gyeongju for me was the highlight of our recently-concluded visit to South Korea. The grassy tombs and traditional architecture appealed to my inner history geek, and the three-days, two-nights my wife and I stayed there weren't even close to appreciating most of what "the museum without walls" has to offer visitors. For Shu-E, however, it was our next stop on the trip that would prove to be her favorite. On the morning of our eighth day we found ourselves at Gyeongju Station waiting to board our SRT to South Korea's second-largest city, Busan: 

Around 55 minutes and two stops later we were at Busan Station:

A photo I captured: For comparison purposes have a look at the top of this post at the same scene as framed by my spouse with her cell phone camera:

From the station we traveled on Busan's metro system to drop off our bags at the Ibis Ambassador Busan City Centre. The view from our room on the 16th floor:

Feeling famished around this time, Shu-E located a Taiwanese restaurant called 永康街 (named after a popular food street in Taipei 台北) a short walk from the hotel:

I had the mapo tofu 麻婆豆腐, washed down with a Taiwan Beer 台灣啤酒, which actually seemed to have improved a bit in taste over what I remember, after more than a week of drinking nothing but mass-market South Korean brews. Perspective - it does wonders sometimes:

After lunch we took a stroll around the area, with the most noticeable feature being the overwhelming number of pensioners shuffling around. I chalked it up to South Korea having one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, and while I'm still certain that was a major factor, Shu-E posited that what attracted the silver set to the neighborhood was the presence of a large traditional market (see below). Of course, she was right, as a later visit to a nightlife district proved there were plenty of younger people in Busan (also see below):

Instant noodles for sale in a department store supermarket. My wife had died and gone to heaven:

That traditional market is called Bujeon, and part of it sat literally under the Ibis Ambassdaor Busan City Centre Hotel. It was here that Shu-E found herself in her element wandering the aisles and perusing the stalls:

 

At one point my significant other remarked that in the unlikely event we're ever posted for work in Busan she could see herself going to the Bujeon Market on a regular basis:

That evening we ventured out from our hotel again in search of a meal. Wanting another break from the local cuisine we headed off in search of a brew pub/pizzeria that I had found on my phone:

Unfortunately, if said establishment had ever existed where the phone indicated it was, it had since closed down or relocated. In the end we settled on a Thai restaurant for dinner:

Daybreak over Busan on the 9th day of our trip:

On this day Shu-E and I would head off in different directions. My wife had been feeling the ill-effects that understandably come from all the walking around that traveling with her husband entails. So on this day she opted to join a bus tour of some of Busan's sightseeing attractions.

I could've gone with her, and the tour itinerary did strongly pique my interest. But my image of sightseeing tours had never been a positive one, bringing to mind overly enthusiastic, bullhorn-blaring, flag-waving guides hurrying their charges from one photo spot to another, with the obligatory souvenir shopping stops included on the schedule. And so I chose to venture off on my own, leaving our hotel after breakfast for my first stop of the day, the Jagalchi Fish Market. Most of the action appeared to be over by the time I showed up (many stalls were beginning to pack up), but there was still a dazzling array of seafood on offer, to go with the powerful odors and slick floors:

I sent this video to Shu-E to show her what she was missing. Crab is one of her favorite foods - one time in Shanghai 上海 for her birthday we had dinner at a Japanese seafood restaurant. The seven-course meal she ordered consisted solely of seven different crab dishes:

The view from the back of the fish market:

More stalls were doing business outside the market building:

From Jagalchi I walked through an upscale shopping district, with many interesting-looking restaurants that hadn't yet opened for business. Unfortunately, by the time my stomach began to remind me it was lunchtime, I was too far away from this neighborhood (not that I would've eaten at Butter):

My next stop was Busan Tower, standing tall at 188 meters (617 feet) high, and providing views of the port in action. Also standing proud was this statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin, hero of the Imjin War, whose turtle ships decimated the naval forces of the invading Japanese:

The enormous Lotte Mall was where I would end up having lunch later:

Descending from the observatory there was a photo exhibit on one of the lower floors. My attention was drawn to several photos taken in cities familiar to me:

"Earthen walls decorated with pieces of roof tiles" in Yongdu-san Park:

Back at ground level I made my way to the Busan Modern History Museum, a free exhibition hall covering the history of Busan's port (developed as an international trading hub by the Japanese), through to the Korean War (students of that conflict are no doubt familiar with the Pusan Perimeter), and into modern times:

A French-language version of the March 1, 1919 Korean Declaration of Independence. Though brutally suppressed by their Japanese colonial masters, the March First Movement that was spawned by the declaration would be a watershed moment in modern Korean history:

Busan also played a significant role in the ROK's difficult transition from an authoritarian right-wing state to the dynamic democracy it is today:

After taking in the fish market, tower and local history museum I was in need of nourishment. However, I wasn't too interested in the mostly fast-food establishments near the museum (with the exception of a busy donburi restaurant that looked good, but one where I would've had to wait for a table), so I made the long trek to the above-mentioned mall, where I eventually settled on this Japanese-style meal for lunch:

Something I like to do on my travels is to buy a sports jersey (usually baseball or soccer) of either the national team or of a local franchise as a memento of my trip. I hadn't been to locate any shops selling such sportswear in Seoul (you might say I struck out - rimshot!), but with time running out, I was determined not to leave Busan empty-handed. Having earlier inquired at a tourist information office near the fish market, following a quick rest stop at my hotel, I took the subway to Sajik Baseball Stadium, home of the Lotte Giants KBO club. It was in the team store that I was finally successful (see below):

Items in hand, I returned to the hotel to wait for Shu-E to return from her tour. She didn't get back until after 1830 hours but looking at the photos she had been sharing on WeChat I quickly regretted not having taken up the offer to go with her. As she would explain later over dinner, the tour was very unobtrusive - basically my wife and the others in the group (a mix of various nationalities, with explanations given in English and Mandarin Chinese) would be dropped off at a location, and then told what time to return to the bus. No group lunch, no mandatory souvenir shopping stops, no silly games, and only brief introductions to the places they were visiting. Always listen to the wife - it's an important life lesson that I continually fail to heed.

A few of the places she visited included the Yeongdo Lighthouse...:

...Taejongdae...:

...the Haedong Yonggungsa Temple...:

...and the Gamcheon Culture Village. I had also planned to visit this area, but by late afternoon I was too tired from walking (oh, the irony!) to make the combined metro/bus trip to see the colorful neighborhood:

The tour also made a stop at Haeundae Beach, the most famous in South Korea. I got to hear about all of these places and more over dinner on our final evening in Busan: 

We found ourselves at a pizzeria serving craft beer - not the one I was looking for the previous evening, but it would more than do. I savored the opportunity to finally imbibe something other than Cass, Terra et al:

After the meal, we took a leisurely stroll back to our hotel through a vibrant nightlife district populated almost entirely by people young enough to remind us of how old we had become:

Back in our room, where I modeled by new Lotte Giants gear. When it comes to that nickname, the club firmly shares the San Francisco Giants end of the spectrum (i.e. a team I can root for), as opposed to the Yomiuri Giants 読売ジャイアンツ, Japan's version of the Evil Empire (aka the New York Yankees) and a team to be despised:

Our last morning in Busan started off with a rainbow:

While gazing at the above, I noticed for the first time this rooftop below our window. Or, to be more precise, the car parked on its roof. How it got there, neither Shu-E or I could figure out. Two more cars had joined this one when we returned from breakfast, suggesting there must've been some elevator mechanism bringing the vehicles up there:

The view from the 17th-floor restaurant where we had our breakfasts:

The wife and I then took another stroll through the Bujeon Market:

With checkout not until noon, and the bus that we would take to our next destination not scheduled to depart until 1330 hours, Shu-E went back to the hotel room to relax. I, on the other hand, decided to explore the area around the hotel one more time, and eventually found myself at Busan Citizens Park, a pleasant green oasis built on the site of a former U.S. army base:

I eventually returned to the hotel as our time in Busan would soon come to an end. I certainly liked the city, but for Shu-E it was clearly her favorite stop on our South Korean itinerary. For her, Busan was reminiscent of Kaohsiung 高雄, both of them being vibrant port cities on opposite ends of their countries from their respective capitals (Seoul and Taipei), and both with very different vibes from the more so-called cosmopolitan metropolises up north. And while I felt Seoul has a lot more in common with Tōkyō 東京 than Taipei's more provincial atmosphere, I concur completely with her observations on Busan.

See, I'm learning to agree more. 

Our final stop would be in Jeonju, which Shu-E had decided we should visit. Stay tuned to read if she was right about this, also.

I may have landed some baseball gear, but it was too late to take in a game. Which is a pity, because that meant I missed out on Korean cultural phenomena like the Pikki Pikki dance: 

*Meant in the positive sense