Busan: Last Day

Our last day was really a half day before we took the taxi back to ride the KTX to Daejeon -- we discovered Shinsegae's Department Store about a 5,000won taxi ride away from Haeundae Beach.

There's a Shinsegae in Myeongdong, Seoul, but the one in Busan claims to be the biggest department store in all of Asia. I guess they have to bring something big and huge to Busan to boost its tourism. Since we only had about 1.5 hours to browse the night before, we woke up early, checked out, and went there with our suitcase. We got to leave our suitcase in the baby carriage storage department on the 7th floor! Excellent service.
Anyway, it's a luxury department store and as much as I love browsing, I couldn't afford too much in the lower levels. They announced a cheaper "young fashion" floor with a similar setup to one of the nicer Macy's Department store sections that sell trendy fashion. Prices range from 25,000-200,000won. I only ended up getting a longer black blazer for 90,000 (they were having a 30% off sale~)! One great thing about Korean sizing compared to ones we find here in Vancouver is the fit of the shoulders. Korean brands are made longer in general and narrower in the shoulders than in Canada.. so I finally found ones that fit! Hurrah!

Shinsegae Department Store (also connected to Lotte Department Store)
One of the reasons why I was excited to visit Busan: the only miu miu in Korea! (I don't believe there's a miu miu in or near Vancouver).
I drooled but did not buy.
They had a nice roof floor
.. with fake bird sounds hahaAnd department store food is always super tasty! They are more expensive than food on street levels, of course, and can range from 6,000-26,000won, but it's well worth it. Good quality stuff - highly recommended! Especially Lotte Department Store's restaurants on the 12th floor, I believe. ^^

Busan: Seomyeon Station

Oooo what a wet day! So wet, we decided to spend it indoors so we took the subway to Seomyeon Station to check out its underground shopping complex. Seomyeon also has a little district called First Street where all the young people hang out. It's sort of like a typical downtown in Korea with bars, restaurants, karaoke bars, cafes, shops, markets, game rooms, movie theatres, and nightclubs. They also have an eating street. The subway is connected to the underground mall (teeming with people) and Lotte Department store so you didn't really have to walk up and out but we did anyway. Actually, it was a bit confusing for me to get around.

Underground mall - waste no space~
The underground shopping mall was quite massive, but not the largest one I've been to. The shops sold mainly clothes, but they also sold typical Korean cosmetics (Tony Moly, The Face Shop, Etude House, Skinfood, Nature Republic) and accessories such as bags, hats, jewelry, and glasses. It would be nice to browse around over the course of a couple days and actually dig through all the random clothes in the smaller shops. We stopped by a cafe as per usual -- want some?
It was a neat cafe where each table was enclosed by curtains so you really did have privacy! And if you wanted service, you just had to press that button almost all Korean restaurants have that rings and lets servers know who needs something.
Despite my "happiness" in that picture, it was an absolutely miserable day because of the rain, unfortunately.
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Korean television has a whole channel dedicated to solving math problems...
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yea ............................................................
My Boys Over Flowers poster I got (and couldn't bring home) from buying the F4 Special Edition CD @ Hot Tracks, Kyobo.
This was a cute ad on the subway:
It says "Mommy, daddy, I love you."

Busan: Gwangalli Beach

Gwangalli Beach is a popular beach in Busan that's lined with cafes and restaurants.
It was perfectly warm, not too breezy, and a bit cloudy at first, and then the clouds disappeared after an hour and we enjoyed a wonderfully "loungy" day at the beach!

Popular among the young crowd --Gotta pay to use the umbrella!
We sunbathed for a while and took a nap and took a dip~Nice + clean beachYou can do a bunch of water sports here, too such as wakeboarding, kayaking, banana boating, and sea-doo racing.

At night~
The street our motel was on -- in the "mass motel" district across from Heundae Beach.
We're back in Seoul, by the way - came back on Sunday and we're back at Banana Backpacker's Hostel in a private double ensuite. Sure is nice not having to wait for the bathroom anymore! I've got quite a bit of catch up to do! After spending 4 days in Busan, we visited my friends and stayed overnight in Daejeon for 2 days before we KTX-ed it back to Seoul. Fun stuff~ update to come! I'm bitten alive by mosquitoes! I've collected quite a few bites yesterday -- on my face, too =( How sad. Our last few days are totally booked up with performances, more shopping (yea I shop a LOT but I never seem to buy much!), having meals with friends, and revisiting our favourite places. I can't believe I'm only here for another 5 days! Chalja~

Busan: Jagalchi Market

It smells fishy...

One afternoon, M and I had lunch at the Jagalchi Market (자갈치시장). It's a famous landmark of Busan where ajummas (40+ married Korean women) sell all sorts of fish and seafood caught that morning. Once we stepped out of the taxi, we could smell the fish and salt water.
Lots of different types of seafood on display~It's Korea's biggest seafood market.Located right next to the port where all the seafood comes from.Ew... on the groundBaby shark for sale?
Undercover areaThey had some strange creatures... I have no idea what this is... looks like a fat frog leg sticking out there hah
Watching their women work kk.I read that flatfish sashimi was delicious so, after using my cell phone's e-dictionary, I went searching for "kajami", pointing to every flat fish and asking the ajumma if it was "kajami". Quite a few sold it - I've never bought fish other than salmon before so I didn't really know how this would work or how much a fish should cost. Once I found it, I pointed to one and asked how much it was. The ajumma said "o chon" (5,000 won). So I say okay... and then she starts packing up the whole pile!! Shocked, I quickly clarified with her that I was only going to pay "5 chon" and she happily reassured me.... what was I going to do with all that fish?! I mean, I love fish but there had got to be over 10 in that bag!
So we brought it to a store to have it sliced up. You can do that in Korea - just go to a store with fish in hand, and they will slice it up for you as sashimi or whatnot. Silly me - I had plum forgotten that sashimi needed to be totally fresh - like the fish had to still be alive and swimming 5 minutes before it reached a platter! So the shops refused to serve it as sashimi, saying it would make me sick so I had all the fish grilled on some 2nd floor.
kk... I love fish but it was a LOT! This was part of our 1st batch... had 3 more batches come afterward. It was sooo delish though~~ I got my fish fix!
You can find these dried seafood snack stands in busy places in Seoul, too.
Rats... I was quite excited to try live octopus on this trip down to Busan but I didn't have anyone to share the dish with. Live octopus is considered a delicacy. There's a Korean movie called Old Boy where one of the character orders a live octopus and eats it... whole... it's really quite amazing -- watch HERE. Of course, eating it isn't as extreme as in the movie. The servers cut the baby octopus up so the tentacles are still squirming around on the plate. You pick it up with your chopsticks, dip it lightly in soy sauce (there may be some other sauces, too), and eat! Make sure you chew, though! There have been several deaths each year as a result of not chewing enough and choking. Here's a video on the "Art of eating SanNakji"!

Busan's Orange Moon

We're in Busan! It's a city in the southernmost tip of South Korea and because it's next to the ocean, the climate is much cooler than in Seoul. Thank goodness because just this morning, we left the wettest and the most warm-humid morning in Seoul ever!

We took the KTX to Busan and it took around 2.5 hours.
We got the taxi driver in Busan to take us to Heundae Station because there were a lot of cheap places to stay. We ended up at an interesting motel called Nobelesse for 40,000won/night for 2 people (haha sounds so sketch). It's actually pretty decent with a large TV and even a computer with free internet for you to use! The shower is one of those full body massage showers, too. What's great about the motel is its location - it's only 2 blocks away from Heundae Beach which is the most well-known beach in Korea.

As one of the busiest seaports in the world, Busan is chock full of seafood restaurants. So, for dinner, we went to an outdoor restaurant that specialized in... dun dun dunnnnn eel! I love canned eel haha... but I don't think I've ever tried fresh eel.
This guy took a good 5 minutes picking out a small one for us. Slimey...
2 seconds later, it was on a cutting board...
Uhh.. this picture - viewer discretion is advised... I watched him cut up my eel.
(Detail: he held the eel down on the cutting board and jabbed a nail into its eye to kill it faster and then slit it open and de-boned it really quickly.)
Then one of the guys grilled it for us and coated it in this red sauce that wasn't very spicy.
Ah it was interesting! Kind of hard to explain - not dense and meaty like canned versions - it was soft and didn't really taste like seafood. I enjoyed it, though =)
There was this friendly guy who came around to talk to us. He told us to try one of the side-dishes I swore I would never eat because of how it looked. I remember seeing large buckets of these being sold on the side streets in Taiwan, too. The guy didn't know what it was called in English, but he urged us to try, saying that it's nationally popular street-food snack.
Talk about Fear Factor!
I ate one.................................................................
So did Melanie. It didn't really taste like anything, but Melanie said it was a bit salty. I ate it, thinking it was some sort of seafood. All I can remember was the feelig of its "guts" exploding in my mouth.... gah it was the nastiest thing! And then I needed to know what it was so I used the dictionary on my cell phone and showed it to the guy. We eventually found out that it was a BUG. yup.............. some sort of small beetle!!!! I don't recommend it at all!

Afterward, we strolled down to Heundae Beach and dipped out feet in the water! It's very nice. You could smell the salt water from our motel.
It was lined with higher end hotels and restaurants.On the way back, we passed a mini street stall market except it was very much unlike any one I've seen in Seoul!
These ones only sold seafood!You can see the live, fresh seafood in the tanks before you eat them (raw or cooked).Must go to bed -- we've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow!