All posts by Claire

About Claire

Wandering (and wondering) development professional and aspiring aid worker. Contact me on anticipationofwonder[at]gmail[dot]com

Gyeongju

Adventures, Daegu, Food, travelling in Korea, , , ,
Gyeongju
One of the places about which my guide book is unusually enthusiastic – unusual because it is decidedly luke-warm about places like Daegu – is Gyeongju, a city about an hour away from Daegu which served as the capital during the Silla rule in the area, including during the first part of the existence of a unified Korea. The place is jam-packed with historically important buildings and artefacts and relishes it’s ancient past.
As luck would have it, however, this weekend’s adventure was joined by a wonderfully congenial group of people and so turned out to be a day more devoted to the joy of simple pleasures and good company than the awe of historical grandeur. I’ll definitely return at some point and satisfy my somewhat singular desire to explore the past but yesterday (Saturday) was an absolute blast and I’m so glad it worked out as it did.
We met at Daegu station at 10:45. Unlike the route between Daegu and Seoul or Busan, there is no KTX that runs from Daegu to Gyeongju. In fact, even the medium speed ‘express’ train only runs a few times a day. There is the option of taking the bus, but that is rather daunting and seemed like a mission when we’ve all just figured out this train system. This meant that it wasn’t possible for us to leave at 10am, which had been the original plan. Instead, we got onto an 11:17 train, which was – oddly – running almost 10 minutes late. It still amuses me that 10 minutes late is such a big deal anywhere in the world.
On the trip out to Gyeongju we were scattered throughout the carriage because the train was quite full. People listened to music and slept. I watched a late autumn world pass by. The seasons here are definitely changing and autumn is rapidly fading into winter. It was glorious to see the sun for the first time after a week of rain in Daegu, though.
Gyeongju Station is a little different from the others I have seen. My guidebook informed me that this little city fell out of favour with the rulers of the country after the end of Silla rule around 935 AD but was restored by the autocratic president ruling the country in the 1970s who, among other things, prevented any skyscrapers from being built and saw to it that many of the buildings were restored to retain their traditional character. As a result, the station looks and feels like a very old building, complete with the distinctive traditional roof.
Once outside, we headed off to find some coffee and take a proper look at the map we’d picked up at the tourist information booth in the station. It took us a few blocks of walking to determine that Gyeongju is apparently not dotted all over with coffee shops as is normal in places like Daegu. After a few blocks Tim, who had been struggling to read the map and walk at the same time, suggested that we take a right. The map wasn’t all that helpful.
And then we spotted a collection of stones near a wall, which looked sufficiently historical to be interesting. Sure enough, there was an information board indicating that this was the Gyeongju walled fortress. Unfortunately, this walled fortress was not on our not-very-helpful map.
Fortunately, we spotted, just a little further down the road, a bicycle-rental shop. One of the things the guide-book and all the websites had mentioned was that Gyeongju was one of the few places were it was possible to rent and ride around on bicycles and we were all quite excited about the idea. Nothing was in English but the more adventurous members of our party were not at all daunted and got right down to making plans. We all picked out bikes, including one tandem bike for the two guys in the group, one of whom somehow avoided the (for the rest of us) standard childhood passtime of learning to ride. Two of the girls also considered a tandem but decided it was not a good idea and so were the last to choose and thereby ended up with pretty girls’ bikes complete with baskets. The bikes cost us 7000 won each to rent for the day, to be returned no later than 7pm.
All saddled up, we headed off to explore. While the rest of us had been dithering over choosing and becoming familiar with (and stable on) our bikes, the guys had gotten us directions, so we headed towards the river, alongside which we would find a long, lovely bicycle track running all the way from the city centre area to Bunum lake, a few kilometres to the East.
There is something delightful in a group along a well-maintained bike track beside a river. We found ourselves pedalling furiously and coasting down hills, ringing bells and remembering when we were children. The river danced over rocks and weirs, sparkling in the sunshine and the occasional bit of wind rippled through the tall dry grass. We passed tennis courts and mini-driving ranges, and an exercise park. Along the path, we met up with and passed families walking and people riding in the other direction, some in professional-looking riding gear and others who appeared to be on their way to work or just out enjoying the Saturday afternoon. Surveyors were measuring something on the river bed.
We rode for a long time. I’m not particularly fit and I haven’t been on a bicycle for a long time, so muscles I haven’t used in a while began to protest at some points. The odd thing about riding with others is that there is a lot more incentive to just keep going. It was worth it. The ride was delightful. Just the feeling of being outside in the crisp late autumn air and the freedom of being on bicycles was precious. Lauren’s bike had a basket in the front and we spent some time wishing we could find her a baguette and some onions to complete the picture. The guys, on their tandem, were slower than the rest of us, but they managed to keep up and eventually we found ourselves leaving the delight of the bike trail and riding along the pavement beside busy road.
We stopped to wait for everyone to catch up and the delicous smell of food from across the road taunted those of us who hadn’t had breakfast but we pressed on to the lake. We stopped beside a large map of the lake (which, incidentally pointed people in the wrong direction) and left our bikes chained to a bench. The lake is beautiful. The guidebook mentioned the area as being the haunt of wealthy holiday-makers. The tiny shop we stopped at near the lake was next to a kiddies’ mini-dirt-bike track. We went on to the edge of the water and walked around toward the hotel area.
The afternoon was nippy but beautiful. The sun alternately sparkled on the water and dipped behind clouds. The slopes around the water lay heavy with autumn leaves. We walked along paths between wintery trees and sparkling ripples of water. Tim jumped down onto the pebble-strewn edge of the water to skip stones. Several others tried unsuccessfully but he managed to get it right.
After a while we reached a boat-restaurant. The rest of the group had recently eaten at Daegu’s airplane-restaurant, so it seemed appropriate to continue the vehicular-eating-place theme. We went inside, raising immediate attention by being loud and foreign, but not really minding because we were all a little cold and rather tired by this point.
Eating at Korean restaurants is a bit of a hit-and-miss exercise, partly because menus don’t always bare all that much relation to what is actually on offer and partly because the same dish may taste completely different from one place to the next. The joys of eating at these places, however, are also significant. Some of these are simple, such as the fact that water is brought to the table as soon as you sit down, followed by a variety of side-dishes as soon as the order is placed. Another, fairly significant at least in its difference from Western restaurants, is that meals are often shared instead of each person ordering and eating individually. We were a group of eight, conveniently settled in two clusters of four around the gas-burners set in the tables that are the norm in so many Korean restaurants, so we ordered two group dishes. The first to arrive, at burner I was sitting at, was a braised beef-rib stew which was absolutely fantastic. The meat was tender, the thin gravy was full of flavour and it all went down beautifully with the side dishes and a bit of the standard rice-on-the-side. The other foursome was presented, not much later, with their spicy duck and vegetables, which was also great – although in the particular situation it was frustrating to have to wait for the duck to cook.
A good, slow-food lunch later, we wandered back out of the restaurant and, after a brief stop at the cafe next door to buy something sweet to finish of the meal, headed back to our bikes. By this stage several of us were starting to feel a little sore and the cold hand of winter was definitely starting to sneak under jackets and dance among the leaves.
The first part of the ride back was lovely – consisting mostly of coasting down hills – but it got harder as we got closer to the city. The guys on the tandem were also struggling more this time. We stopped to wait for them at the exercise park where, of course, we tried out all the machines, not, of course, that we needed much more exercise after our long ride. The machines were fun, though.
The ride became quite a bit less pleasant after this stop. It was flat-to-uphill and a sharp, cold wind blew towards us all the way.  The sun was also going down, bringing with it the winter cold. There was some confusion about where we were going, but eventually we all found each other and headed back to the rental shop to return the bikes.
At this point, we could have headed home but a couple of us were really keen to see a few more of the sights for which the area is renowned, particularly Anapji Pond, which is supposed to be (and is) very beautiful at night. This park was created by the Silla rulers as a pleasure garden where they entertained guest such as foreign dignitaries. Although the area fell out of use in for a few hundred years, it has been restored and is still very beautiful. The next time I’m in town, I will definitely visit it during the day as well. This time, unfortunately, it was rather cold.
We walked around the pond (artificial lake) and then marched on – thanks to the determination of one of our group, for which I at least am thankful – to see some other sights. We stopped to look at an ice-house built during the Josean dynasty. We also stopped to look at the Cheomseongdae astronomical observatory tower dating from the seventh century.
As fascinating and beautiful as all of these were, it was by now very cold, so we headed back to the station and caught the 19:15 train back to Daegu. There were plans afoot on the trip for a big night out downtown. When we got back we jumped into two taxis and headed to the usual Galbi joints near the Sam Deok Sobangseo taxi stop. Unfortunately it was apparently a very busy night downtown and nowhere had space for a party of eight, not even the bus-restaurant we tried in the hopes of continuing the vehicular-eating-house theme. We eventually found a Mexican place that was warm and peaceful and fed us lovely food. Three of us split Nachos, Chicken Quesidilla and Beef Tacos between us and may possibly have had the best meal out of everyone.
By the end of the meal, all thoughts of a big night had faded in dreams of home and warmth so we found some taxis and headed off into the night. The weather has really turned cold now and while I struggle to understand a completely unknown temperature phenomenon, I’m encouraged by the fact that the Canadians are feeling the cold too – so clearly it’s not just all in my head. I have a feeling that the weather may restrict the number of adventurous days like this I experience in the next little while, but I’m so glad this one happened and that the memory of racing along bicycle trails beside rivers with friends will be one of those I take with me from my time here in Korea.

One of the places about which my guide book is unusually enthusiastic – unusual because it is decidedly luke-warm about places like Daegu – is Gyeongju, a city about an hour away from Daegu which served as the capital during the Silla Dynasty, including during the first years of a unified Korea. The place is jam-packed with historically important buildings and artefacts and relishes it’s ancient past.

As luck would have it, however, this weekend’s adventure was joined by a wonderfully congenial group of people and so turned into a day more devoted to simple pleasures and good company than the awe of historical grandeur. I’ll definitely return at some point and satisfy my somewhat singular desire to explore the past but yesterday (Saturday) was an absolute blast and I’m so glad it worked out as it did.

We met at Dongdaegu station at 10:45. Unlike the route between Daegu and Seoul or Busan, there is no KTX that runs from Daegu to Gyeongju. In fact, even the medium speed ‘express’ train only runs a few times a day. There is the option of taking the bus, but that seemed like a mission when we’ve all just figured out this train system. This meant that it wasn’t possible for us to leave at 10am, which had been the original plan. Instead, we got onto an 11:17 train, which was – oddly – running almost 10 minutes late. It still amuses me that 10 minutes late is such a big deal anywhere in the world.

On the trip out to Gyeongju we were scattered throughout the carriage because the train was quite full. People listened to music and slept. I watched a late autumn world pass by. The seasons here are definitely changing as autumn rapidly fades into winter. It was glorious to see the sun for the first time after a week of Daegu rain.

Gyeongju Station is a little different from the others I have seen. My guidebook informed me that this little city fell out of favour with the rulers of the country after the end of Silla rule, around 935 AD, but was restored by the autocratic president in the 1970s who, among other things, prevented any skyscrapers from being built and saw to it that many of the buildings retained their traditional character. As a result, the station looks and feels like a very old building, complete with the distinctive traditional roof.

Once outside, we headed off to find some coffee and take a proper look at the map we’d picked up at the tourist information booth. It a few blocks to determine that Gyeongju is apparently not dotted all over with coffee shops as in places like Daegu. After a few blocks Tim, who had been struggling to read the map and walk at the same time, suggested that we take a right.

And then we spotted a collection of stones near a wall, which looked sufficiently historical to be interesting. Sure enough, there was an information board indicating that this was the Gyeongju’s walled fortress. Unfortunately, this walled fortress was not on our not-very-helpful map.

Fortunately, we spotted, just a little further down the road, a bicycle-rental shop. One of the things the guide-book and all the websites mentioned was that in Gyeongju, unlike most Korean cities, it is possible to rent and ride around on bicycles. We were all quite excited about the idea. Nothing was in English but the more adventurous members of our party were not at all daunted and got right down to making plans. We all picked out bikes, including one tandem for the two guys in the group, one of whom somehow avoided the (for the rest of us) standard childhood passtime of learning to ride. Two of the girls also considered a tandem but decided it was not a good idea and so were the last to choose and ended up with pretty girls’ bikes complete with baskets. The bikes cost us 7000 won each to rent for the day, to be returned no later than 7pm.

All saddled up, we headed off to explore. While the rest of us had been dithering over choosing and becoming familiar with (and stable on) our bikes, the guys had gotten us directions, so we headed towards the river, alongside which we would find a long, lovely bicycle track running all the way from the city centre area to Bunum lake, a few kilometres away.

There is something delightful about riding in a group along a well-maintained bike trail beside a river. We found ourselves pedalling furiously and coasting down hills, ringing bells and remembering childhood moments. The river danced over rocks and weirs, sparkling in the sunshine and occasional breaths of wind rippled through the tall, dry grass. We passed tennis courts, a mini-driving range and an exercise park. Along the path, we met up passed families walking and people riding in the other direction. Surveyors were measuring something on the river bed.

We rode for a long time. I’m not particularly fit and I haven’t been on a bicycle for a long time, so muscles I haven’t used in a while began to protest. Riding with others is a great incentive to keep going. It was worth it. The ride was delightful. Just the feeling of being outside in the crisp late autumn air and the freedom of being on bicycles was precious. Lauren’s bike had a basket in the front and we spent some time wishing we could find her a baguette and some onions and cheese to complete the picture. The guys, on their tandem, were slower than the rest of us, but they managed to keep up and eventually we found ourselves leaving the bike trail and riding along the pavement beside busy road.

We stopped to wait for everyone to catch up and the delicous smell of food from across the road taunted those of us who hadn’t had breakfast but we pressed on to the lake. We stopped beside a large map of the lake (which, incidentally pointed people in the wrong direction) and left our bikes chained to a bench. The lake is beautiful. The guidebook mentioned the area as being the haunt of wealthy holiday-makers. The tiny shop we stopped at near the lake was next to a kiddies’ mini-dirt-bike track. We went on to the edge of the water and walked around toward the hotel area.

The afternoon was nippy but beautiful. The sun alternately sparkled on the water and dipped behind clouds. The slopes around the water lay heavy with autumn leaves. We walked along paths between wintery trees and sparkling ripples. Tim jumped down onto the pebble-strewn edge of the water to skip stones.

After a while we reached a boat-restaurant. The rest of the group had recently eaten at Daegu’s airplane-restaurant recently, so it seemed appropriate to continue the vehicular-eating-venue theme. We went inside, raising immediate attention by being loud and foreign, but not really minding because we were all a little cold and rather tired by this point.

Eating at Korean restaurants is a bit of a hit-and-miss exercise, partly because menus don’t always bare all that much relation to what is actually on offer and partly because the same dish may taste completely different from one place to the next. The joys of eating at these places, though, are also significant. Some are simple, such as the fact that water is brought to the table as soon as you sit down, followed by a variety of side-dishes as soon as the order is placed. Another, fairly significant at least in its difference from Western restaurants, is that meals are often shared. We were a group of eight, conveniently settled in two clusters of four around the gas-burners set in the tables – the norm in so many Korean restaurants. We ordered two group dishes. The first to arrive, at the burner I was seated at, was a braised beef-rib stew which was absolutely fantastic. The meat was tender, the thin gravy full of flavour and it all went down beautifully with the side dishes and a bit of the standard rice-on-the-side. The other foursome was presented, not much later, with their spicy duck and vegetables, which was also great – although in this particular situation it was frustrating to have to wait for the duck to cook.

A good, slow-food lunch later, we wandered back out of the restaurant and, after a brief stop at the cafe next door to buy sweets to finish of the meal, headed back to our bikes. By this stage several of us were starting to feel a little sore and the cold hand of winter was definitely sneaking under jackets and dancing in the leaves.

The first part of the ride back was lovely – consisting mostly of coasting down hills – but it got harder as we got closer to the city. The guys on the tandem were struggling more this time. We stopped to wait for them at the exercise park where, of course, we tried out all the machines – not that we needed much more exercise after our long ride but the machines were fun, though.

The ride became quite a bit less pleasant after this. It was flat-to-uphill and a sharp, cold wind blew towards us all the way.  The sun was also going down, bringing with it the winter cold. There was some confusion about where we were going, but eventually we all found each other and headed back to the rental shop to return the bikes.

At this point, we could have headed home but a couple of us were really keen to see a few more of the sights, particularly Anapji Pond, which is supposed to be (and is) very beautiful at night. This park was created by the Silla rulers as a pleasure garden where they entertertained foreign dignitaries. Although the area fell out of use in for a few hundred years, it has been restored and is still very beautiful. The next time I’m in town, I will definitely visit it during the day as well. This time, unfortunately, it was rather cold.

We walked around the pond (artificial lake) and then marched on – thanks to the determination of one of our group (for which I at least am thankful) – to see some other sights. We stopped to look at an ice-house built during the Josean dynasty. We also stopped to look at the Cheomseongdae astronomical observation tower dating from the seventh century.

As fascinating and beautiful as all of this was, it was now very cold, so we headed back to the station and caught the 19:15 train back to Daegu. There were plans afoot on the trip for a big night out downtown. We jumped into two taxis and headed to the usual Galbi joints near the Sam-Deok Sobangseo taxi stop. Unfortunately it was apparently a very busy night downtown and nowhere had space for a party of eight, not even the bus-restaurant we tried in the hopes of continuing the vehicular-eating-house theme. We eventually found a Mexican place that was warm and peaceful and fed us lovely food. Three of us split Nachos, Chicken Quesadilla and Beef Tacos between us and may possibly have had the best meal out of everyone.

By the end of the meal, all thoughts of a big night had faded in dreams of home and warmth, so we found taxis and headed off into the night. The weather has really turned cold now and while I struggle to understand a completely unknown temperature phenomenon, I’m encouraged by the fact that the Canadians are feeling the cold too (so clearly it’s not all just in my head). I have a feeling that the weather may restrict the number of adventurous experiences in the next little while, but I’m so glad this one happened and that the memory of racing along bicycle trails beside rivers with friends will be one of those I take with me from my time here in Korea.

Beach in the rain and a strange city (Busan part 2)

Adventures, travelling in Korea, ,

The second part of Sunday’s trip to Busan was a little different. After visiting the 40 steps and Jagalchi Fish Market, I was determined also to accomplish my original and slightly less tourist-y objective in coming to Busan: to see the sea (less tourist-y in that the urge afflicts me whether I live by the sea or not).

I took the subway back to the Busan Station stop and then went to find a bus. Buses are a much better way to see a city than subways. A subway allows you to get from place to place quickly, but you don’t really get a sense of what the city looks like. A large part of my exploring has been done from the windows city buses. That said, buses in strange cities can be a little intimidating, not least because you don’t know small but remarkably important things like what how much the bus fare will be, which stop to get off at and how long it will take to get to that stop (which is particularly important when the announcements are in incomprehensible Korean). Luckily, a bit of guesswork and tiny scraps of information gathered from the internet can help. I didn’t know how much the bus would cost but I surmised, correctly, that the price of a fare was unlikely to be more than about 2000 won.

Across the road from the subway station, I finally found the right bus stop. While I waited, I spotted a little Korean restaurant and was very tempted to stop and get Mandoo for lunch, but I wasn’t sure how often the buses ran, so I decided to wait until I reached Gwangalli Beach.

The world through the window of a bus on a rainy Sunday afternoon is a strange place. Because buses are the way many ordinary people commute – as opposed to a tourist thing – they travel through places where tourists wouldn’t normally go. I watched Busan pass by. All the cities that I have seen overseas before have felt vaguely familiar. Either they’ve been a lot like places I know well, or they have seemed to combine elements of those places.  This city felt different.

Perhaps it begins with the fact that Busan station opens into an area which feels like, and is, a port-city CBD. Instead of the tourist centres in other Korean cities, this one felt like an ordinary, working city. In spite of the obligatory statuary and bits and pieces clearly put up as a gesture to the tourists, this is a place where people rush about getting on with their business. There was someone preaching in the busy square as all the people hurried by. The people waiting for buses were determined and impatient. The subways were full of ordinariness, without the veneer of modern tourist-pleasing. The working port had cranes moving containers about. The fish market was full of locals, not foreigners. I felt somewhat out of place and no-one looked at me with the kindly eyes of people who see you as a source of foreign money. The place felt gritty.

On the bus, the occasional announcement was in English but most were in Korean, with a dialect or an accent I found difficult to understand. The places we passed were city places. There was beautiful graffiti on some of the walls. People with umbrellas and children and shopping hurried down busy streets. Cars wove in and out of traffic jams. The whole places seemed to be in motion – a strange, real motion that I haven’t seen for a while. The people on the bus looked normal. That sounds so strange when I write it, but that was the sense I got. Sitting on that bus, passing through the city, I felt like Busan was real. It’s odd how sometimes a contrast brings into sharp light what you didn’t realise you were feeling about another place. Being there, Daegu suddenly seemed artificial, like a place that was carefully constructed to fit into certain boxes. All the tourist places in Daegu, all the parks and sights, the artificial lake (Suseong Lake), all seemed somehow sanitised. This place (Busan) didn’t feel like that. Even Seoul, although it is very different, felt when I was there like it was a little bit magical, almost like being in a specially prepared bubble. Busan just felt real.

And a real city has problems. I saw areas where the houses weren’t well maintained and hotels that were run-down and obviously dodgy. I noticed city-centre pavements starting to crack and flowerbeds that weren’t perfectly weeded. Near the station and from the bus window, I saw people who looked confused and who didn’t seem altogether there. And even what looked like one or two begging. There was graffiti on some of the walls. There were shops and what looked like actual shopping centres. I found myself thinking two things.

Firstly, this was a city that hadn’t been planned and controlled – it was a place that had grown and developed naturally, with all the messiness and ordinariness that goes it. Secondly, that this city was not trying to hide what it is. It’s a city without veneer and pretense. That surprised me, I suppose because what I have seen so far of Korea have been places that, now that I think about it, seemed to be cleaned up and made to look pretty and modern – perhaps for foreigners, but more likely to cling to the idea of Korea as a truly modern country without all those messy developing-world problems.

I was surprised by my reaction. My reactions. I found myself feeling a little melancholy that the veneer might not run deep. I know, if I’m honest with myself, that there are things very wrong in Korea and I guess I had a sense that it was all pretense, but it was nice to be able to pretend for a bit. Busan was like a bubble bursting, or perhaps just like being offered the option to see the world outside the bubble.

Even when I was wandering around the 40 steps and visiting the fish market, Busan didn’t feel 100% safe. I don’t mean that in a negative sense. Feeling completely safe isn’t real. The sense of this being a real place with real problems was like waking up from some sort of fantasy-world dream and returning to reality. Everyone misses the illusion of perfection when the dream is gone, but too long in that dream or that bubble stops being fun, stops being good. It drives you a little mad. The cold wind of morning, or in this case the pouring rain of Busan, is refreshing, even if it means a return to the real, unpretty facts.

All this swirled in my head as I sat on the bus trying to hear the announcements, in the vain hope of not missing my stop, and watching the rain begin to fall. After a while, I decided that we must surely have gone far enough but I still couldn’t understand any of the announcements, so I got off the bus to find a route-map to read. My rudimentary knowledge of written Korean is thankfully sufficient for me to figure out (given enough time) things like bus route-maps. I established that I was two stops early and got onto the next bus to come along. Once I finally reached the stop that the random internet site had suggested, I got off and walked (in now pouring rain) along the road. And then along another road. And another. I am quite glad that I have a reasonable sense of direction, and that I’ve known enough beach-front cities to know that the tall hotels are probably right on the shore (and therefore to walk towards them), or I imagine I might still be wandering around this suburb of Busan.

The beach was beautiful. This is not to say that it in any way rivals the beaches back home (in SA), but I’d been desperately wanting to see the sea for so long and it’s a proper sand beach. I walked along for a while, just breathing in the rain and the sea air and looking at the water and sand. I had hoped to find a Korean restaurant along the beach to have a (by now very) late lunch. Unfortunately all the Korean places appeared to be closed so, after rejecting a KFC and a Starbucks, I settled on a burger place that looked – based on their lack of ability to use English correctly – like it probably wasn’t all foreigners.

The waitress tried several times to convince me that I’d be happier inside instead of on the covered veranda overlooking the sea. I gently refused – much to her chagrin – and stayed firmly rooted to the chair I’d chosen. It wasn’t a particularly exciting lunch – burger, ‘fries’ and a coke – but the view of the beach in the rain was exceptional.

I love beaches in wet weather, perhaps even more than in sunshine. There is something so beautifully empty and lonely about walking along a beach in the rain. This time, my life was complicated a little by the fact that I also wanted to take pictures. In the interests of staying dry, I have recently procured a water-proof jacket and my backpack has a built-in waterproof cover, so I didn’t bother bringing an umbrella. This, it turns out, was a mistake, not because I got wet, but because taking pictures became impossible during the rather heavy rain. After a while, I put the camera away and just walked.

The buildings along this waterfront felt a little bit like Sea-point or Camps Bay – bars and restaurants and huge hotels, all with some sort of sea-theme or serving some specific type of food or entertainment to differentiate them from one another. This beachfront must be packed and crazy in mid-summer. On a a rainy late-autumn day, it was fairly empty.

Not entirely empty. There were couples wandering along, huddled under umbrellas. And fishermen launching a boat. There were lone souls rushing along trying to stay dry. When the rain let up, there were jet-skiers and three children playing at the water’s edge.

The beach didn’t have any proper waves but the occasional ripple was enough to create the sound – that sound of the sea the permeates my dreams and makes me feel at home, even though I’ve never lived at the beach. Seagulls cried overhead and sat, miserably damp, in rows on the beach in the rain. The sea was blue-grey, stretching to the shore or the rocky-edge on three sides of the little bay. On the fourth side, the sea stretched to the horizon –  the open space that makes me love the sea – but there was also a huge, long bridge stretching right across it. The bridge was pretty. I like bridges and this one was attractive. I didn’t realise how huge it was until I looked through a couple of view-finder things on the shore and realised that it was a double-storey bridge – with one direction of traffic passing across the top layer of the bridge and the other on the lower layer. Huge trucks scuttled across this massive structure. I watched clouds rolling in from far out to sea beyond the bridge.

On the far side of the little bay, there were rows of blocks of flats, each one marked with a primary colour, screaming their purpose as holiday flats to all the world. I felt at home here in this beach-front world in the rain. I’m not good at tourist beaches when they’re packed with people partying their summer away, but I’m quite fond of them in the rain.

Eventually, with a last look at Gwangalli Beach, just as a stray ray of sunlight lit up the water and the bridge, I took a bus back to the station and the KTX back to Daegu.

40 steps and Jagalchi Fish Market (Busan Part 1)

Adventures, Food, trains and train stations, travelling in Korea, , , ,

Daegu is not a coastal city. But some days the wind blows in a certain way and the glare is a particular way and the air has that feeling of moisture that makes me think of the sea. I think that is the reason I’ve thought a lot about coastal towns since I arrived here and have, several times, made vague plans to go and find the nearest beach I know of in Busan (also called Pusan). Plans have fallen through or been shelved several times. I came close to going with friends to the Pusan International Film Festival last month and then decided against it at the last minute. This weekend, in spite of predictions of rain, I finally went to Busan.

I woke up early, thanks to a mosquito launching a concerted attack at 7am so I got my things together and headed off. The 814 bus got me to the station at 10am. A taxi would have been quicker, but I wanted to try the bus. I bought at ticket for the 10:28 KTX (11500 won) and went to find breakfast. After rejecting a ‘garlic glazed’ doughnut, I retreated from all food-related-adventurousness and picked up a sandwich at the 7eleven.

The KTX from Dongdaegu to Busan takes roughly one hour. I sat back and enjoyed the trip through rural-ish areas, watching with joy as we passed autumn vineyards. One of my favourite sites is grape vines in autumn. These could, of course, just have be table grapes but they were still pretty and familiar. Closer to Busan, the train wove it’s way through mountains and alongside and across wide rivers, or perhaps just one river – as far as I can gather, Busan is at the end of the Nakdong river but I’m not sure of that.

Outside Busan station, I wandered around feeling lost . I’m not very good at strange places with lots of people. I was going to take buses because they’re a better way to see a city but at that point I saw the subway and had had no luck finding the right bus, so I retreated to the familiar and easier option. This subway station was very different to those I know in Daegu. If you’ve ever travelled from the Eastern Cape to Joburg by bus, you may have stopped at that slightly dodgy, glaringly out-of-date place where all the buses stop in Bloem. This felt like that. Everywhere was red-brick, too many columns, primary colours and floor-tiles that screamed ‘institution’. And particularly odd murals and décor on the walls. It really all felt very 80s. The Daegu subway stations feels new and modern and efficient. This felt like a relic from a bygone era. The Busan subway system didn’t feel at all efficient and modern and first world. I eventually managed to find the ticket-machine and buy a one-day pass (3500 won). Once I’d figured out how to use the pass, I caught the train (which also seemed far from new) to Jungang-dong station.

When I visit a new place, I tend to start by searching for information. Because I’ve planned to visit Busan several times, I’ve done quite a lot of this information gathering. One of the places I wanted to see, in spite of the reports on several travel websites that it wasn’t worth the effort, was the 40 Gyedan Cultural Tourist Theme Street. The reason the guide books and sites say that it’s not worth a visit is that there isn’t really all that much there except for a few statues on the street and an information board or two. But I have a fairly powerful imagination and an equally strong interest in social history. This little area – which is really just two short streets – has been important at various points in history but the bit that caught my interest was the role it played during the Korean War. During the war, there was a time when pretty much the whole of the peninsula was under the control of the North except for a small area around Busan called the Pusan Perimeter (correct romanisation at the time). This, of course, meant thousands of refugees flooded into the city. Most of them settled, temporarily, on the hills above the port area in Dongwang-dong. These two streets are just below there and would have been an important economic and social area for refugees and residents alike. At the end of one of these streets is a set of 40 steps leading from the lower street to the higher-up residential areas. These are the 40 steps and it is here that refugees would pass to try and find work and food to survive and here they ended up gathering to try to find any information about missing family members. This set of steps became the main place for separated families to seek their loved ones, for some to be reunited and for others to wait in vain and go home sad.

The Koreans are not all that good at memorialising places like this but they have placed statues in bronze around the area representing ordinary people at the time –  like father sleeping on a traditional A-frame pack at the end of work and children carrying water. One the flight of steps, about half way up, is a statue of a man playing an accordion. The story goes that he is playing a song written about the 40 steps, commemorating that time. When I was there, he was silent but the poignancy of this figure on a deserted set of steps, in a neighbourhood that was almost eerily quiet on a chilly, overcast Sunday morning was not lost. I’m not sure I agree with the way in which the area and it’s history have been commemorated. I certainly wasn’t particularly impressed with the information boards and the wooden lampposts – complete with fake pigeon that would have been right at home at Monte Casino. But that doesn’t change the history of the area and I’m glad that my internet meanderings turned up the info about the history of this place and that I was able to visit it myself so that I could visualise something of what that time must have been like.

After the 40 steps, I heading off to one of Busan’s most well-known spots – the Jagalchi Fish Market. This huge market is really meant for locals but it’s significantly large and interesting enough to make it into all the guide books. I could probably have walked there but I didn’t have a map of the area and I was feeling a little lost already, so I took the subway to Nampo-dong station. I walked out of the station (Exit 2, as per sign indicating Jagalchi Fish Market) and along a road that seemed unrelated to fish, until the first side-road on the left, down which I could see the sea. My first sight of the fish market was rows of tiny covered stalls, each with a table and chairs serving as an outdoor restaurant. Opposite them were various slightly larger restaurants. It seemed as if everyone there was trying to get people to stop and buy their seafood dishes. Turning, I saw the huge multi-story building that houses the main markets. Before I reached it, however, there was an Ajumma on the pavement with a market-cart (stall on wheels) covered in fish. She laughed at me as I stopped to take a picture of her wares – rows and rows of dead fish hanging on spikes with other fish, some filleted, some whole, in baskets on the little concrete pavement stools not far away. In Mozambique, I came across people selling fish on the street but none as enthusiastically or in such  volume as this.

Inside the doors of the first floor of the main building, the world became a blur of lights and crowds, people in yellow aprons and black gumboots and rows and rows of tanks where every seafood imaginable splashed and swam and, in the case of the crabs, tried to escape. The huge hall is arranged a little like an expo – with some stalls along the walls and others back-to-back in two or three rows in the middle. Each stall had at least 10 to 15 tanks of different kinds of fish and other sea creatures. There were eels and crabs and lobsters and shell-fish of all sorts and actual fish of every shape and size, from small lightning-quick flashes of silver to big solid-looking 30-cm swimming-lunches. Some where flat with eyes on the top of their bodies, others were thin and slimy looking. I walked through the huge crowded space. People were examining the fish and bartering with stall-holders. Women standing behind stalls currently without customers were expertly cutting up and filleting. I was a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of seafood swimming around in tanks in that hall. I’m not squeamish about the fact that what I eat used to be alive at all but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much swimming seafood. The wriggling and splashing and looking at me became a little too much. I went outside and found an escalator to the second floor. Here there were people sitting at low tables eating some of the things from the floor below. The tables were clustered in groups around the room, crowded between stalls selling dried fish and fish-related products of every shape and size. I considered sitting down and having lunch but most of the tiny restaurant areas were full and they didn’t seem geared up for a solo traveller.

The other side of the main building faces the sea, with views across the water of bridges and ships and a working port. There were also what looked like Sotdae except that they were fish instead of birds. Perhaps fish spirits guard this coastal town. I watched the seagulls circling for a while and breathed in the scent of the sea.

Back on the street, I joined the throngs walking down the street. I kept stepping out of the way, just to look for one moment – hardly believing my eyes – at yet more seafood-still-swimming, some in tanks as inside the building, others in large plastic basins. At one place a woman was cleaning and preparing a crab taken from a tank of crabs each with a body quite literally the size of the woman’s head. On the other side of the road, a man was selling fishing rods and gear. Little women scuttled out of each little restaurant to try and convince the Korean couple walking ahead of me to stop and have lunch in their establishments. A women on the pavement sat cleaning something beside a plastic basin of large, wriggling octopuses. Further along, a pair of women worked on a table next to a row of basins teaming with splashing fish.

I turned up a side-street, between yet more fish restaurants, and headed towards a main road. The last I saw of the fish market was a basket of filleted fish sitting forlornly on a stool on the pavement, with their owner nowhere to be seen, as crowds of people flowed past without even seeming to notice.