The One with All of the Fish

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At the end of May, Mike and I finally ventured out of Daegu and went to visit Jana in Busan. It's truly amazing how long it takes to get to a city that can't be more than 80km away. We took two buses (30 min) to the subway. Took the subway (about 8 min) to Dongdaegu Station where we caught the high speed KTX train that we sat on for an hour until we arrived at Busan station. Jana and Jin met us at the train station and then we went to Jalgachi fish market! I have never seen so many dead sea creatures in all of my life! There were fish, squid, octopus and every size, shape and variety of marine life that you could want (to eat).

On a side note, I am always amazed when I eat soup/stew in Korea (or rather, don't eat it, but take a bowl of it anyway as to not get asked why I don't want any...). At home if you order lets say, crab soup, it would be soup of some kind with chunks of crab meat in it. Emphasis crab meat. Only crab meat. Not a crab, shell bones and all. What is further amazing is to watch the agility with which this crab can be eaten using only a pair of chop sticks and a spoon. The same can be said for any type of animal life that has been turned into food. In fact, one of Mike's co-teachers said to him, "How do you eat chicken in America without chopsticks?" "Well" he told her, "there usually isn't bones in it when we eat it". Ok, you are thinking, but what a bout chicken wings, fried chicken and rotisserie chicken. Yes, there are bones in that but what I'm referring to is, imagine going to a Chinese restaurant and when you bite into your sweet and sour chicken, you find bones or you order a bowl of chicken noodle soup and you bite into the chicken and find bones. 😉

Anyway, after the fish market, we walked around the shopping area of Busan for a little while. Nothing too different from Daegu there, although, we did get to see Uncle Soju (a man dressed up in a Soju bottle costume). haha. For those of you that don't know, soju is an alcoholic beverage in Korea that basically tastes like weak voldka. It is a very popular drink especially among men who are eating dinner, chatting outside, watching tv, etc, etc, you get the idea. :P Our next stop was Haeundae Beach which was really nice to see (I love the beach!) but considering how well known the beach is, I was really surprised to see how small it was. In fact, it was pretty disappointing to see its size. Apparently, in the summer it gets really crowded, but I don't intend to go during the summer. Maybe in the fall after things slow down I will venture back there. Something that was definitely interesting to see at the beach was the women who were walking in the said wearing high heels. I'm not sure how this constituted a good idea, but it wasn't only one woman doing this. After the beach we went the birthday party of a friend of Jana's and then headed back to Jana's to spend the night. The next morning after a short stop at one of Busan's universities for Cold Stone ice cream, we got on the KTX and headed home.

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Photos

What are you looking at?!?
Never seen a car fish tank before?

Jalgalchi Fish Market

Pirate Ship! Haeundae Beach
Actually, I'm pretty sure it's a tour boat or something like that.

Comments

[Shannon Digby]

we also haven't ventured outside of our city much
Hey Nicole! Glad to see you've already seen some major sights in Busan and that you had relatively good weather for that! Yes, currently Haeundae is amazingly crowded. We live right nearby, so next time you come down, please do come to visit! Since moving here, we've been out of Busan a handful of times so far. Jinhae in April - for a cherry blossom festival that was actually a military festival, surrounded by cherry blossoms :) Seoul for 24 hours in early July - just for some training and a quick look around in one area Gyeongju area - to visit some famous temples for my birthday in mid July Daegu - to drop off our kitten just over a week ago and to pick him up on Saturday Jeju Island - 5 days vacation in August Yes, only a handful of places. Now that we've got a car, we'd like to change that. Like you said, to go such a short way, how does it take that long? Well, sometimes car is faster, but we'll have to be smart - sometimes the train is faster! Good photos! Look forward to reading your blog again in the future

[Danielle]

a fishtank car? I remember when I went to Hawaii I was really disappointed with Waikiki beach.