To market, to market we go!

This weekend we spent the weekend exploring more of our neighbouring city, Busan, and the markets.
Saturday we boarded the big, red, double decker city bus to take a tour of Busan and see some new sights. We saw some beautiful parks and beaches and met a few other foreigners allow the way! Though the first part of the tour was really rushed, it gave us ideas of places to go back and visit.

Since Busan is a port city, there are trails all along the coast, so you could walk for hours staring out at the huge ships and never-ending ocean in front of you or the mountanous city behind you. The highlight of the trip was the Jagalchi Fish market, a huge market where you can find any seafood imaginable! I have never seen so much live fish, eels, octopus, squid, crab, and shelled-seafood in my life! While the smell was less than desirable (and flip flops were NOT the shoes to wear - getting splashed with overflowing fish water) it was a cool place to see! I still think that most of the seafood looks totally unappetizing, but Koreans crowd this place everyday to get their fresh seafood! Upstairs there is a live seafood restaurant where you can get probably the best sushi around or, if you are feeling adventurous, you can get a plate full of chopped-up, live octopus...yes, that's right, alive. And word on the street is that their tentacles will stick to the inside of your mouth and your tongue! We did not partake in this delicacy this time around, but we will before this trip is over!!

We also wandered around the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) square, where there is hand prints of all the famous people who have visited during PIFF (Oct 8-16th this year). My favourite part of that was this mistake that I see all over the place with numbers. When they count, they go 1st, 2nd, 3nd, 4nd, 5nd etc. So we saw hand prints from the 12nd annual PIFF! haha! But there were lots of little shops, coffee places and restaurants around, and it was a relatively Western area with stores and restaurants that we would see back home.

Sunday we ventured to the Old City (Buk-jeong) area of Yangsan to the Nambu market where you can find anything and everything at bargain prices! Mara got yelled at in Korean for trying to take pictures of a seafood display. Mike picked up a slimey, squirming eel that jumped out of its bucket! All the Koreans were staring and the crazy/brave foreigner who dared to touch that squirming creature! He saved the day! Other than that, it was a relatively uneventful experience, but it was a fun day!

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