Back To Busan
The conference in Seoul was over and now it was time for the relaxing part. I know I had been to Busan in December, 2007 while I was teaching in Daejeon, South Korea, most likely for a school trip, but that was only months after I had developed epilepsy so that period of my life is a blur at best and I have no recollection of going. Now I’d get to do it all again and without the responsibility for the wellbeing of young schoolchildren with whom I couldn’t really communicate.
Thursday, July 2, 2026
We checked out of the Four Seasons in Seoul, caught an Uber to the train station to catch the KTX and once aboard Anna immediately fell asleep while I listened and laughed at a man doing possibly the loudest snoring I have ever heard in a nearby seat, other passengers smirking at him as well. It was strange as we traveled through Daejeon, because I can only slightly recall what the area looked like in the general vicinity of my apartment and school and I don’t remember it appearing anything like what I saw from the train. Maybe it’s grown, perhaps I only remember certain areas from routine or photos, but we would also over the coming days hear comments that might help explain it when people found out I had once lived there, namely the general consensus being that Daejeon is extremely boring. Anyway, after two and a half hours we were in Busan:
Busan, officially Busan Metropolitan City, is the second most populous city in South Korea, after Seoul; it has a population of over 3.3 million as of 2024. It is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern South Korea, with its port being South Korea’s busiest and the sixth-busiest in the world.
Busan is divided into 15 major administrative districts and a single county, together housing a population of approximately 3.6 million. The entire metropolitan area, the Southeastern Maritime Industrial Region, has a population of approximately 8 million. The most densely built-up areas of the city are situated in a number of narrow valleys between the Nakdong and the Suyeong Rivers, with mountains separating most of the districts. The Nakdong River is Korea’s longest river and Haeundae Beach is the country’s largest beach.
By the time we arrived, were driven to our hotel, and checked in it was almost 6:00pm so it was time to go back downstairs and take a little stroll. I’m generally not a huge fan of going to the beach, but walking along the path here was nice and relaxing and the coastline was beautiful, but once we had walked up the main part and back it was still a bit early to eat. That could only mean one thing, finding somewhere for a pre-dinner drink and as like most coastal areas we saw plenty of good-looking options along the shore. We pulled up a seat, me with my green beer, Anna with her wine and watched the crowd walk by including a dog wearing sunglasses, while we also were sent a picture of our pair from home, Kermit seemingly working her chiropractic magic on Doug.
With moves like that, how could we refuse?
Some time had passed and now we were ready to eat. Whenever I’m in Korea I love going to the places that just have fried chicken and beer, I had wanted to go in Seoul, but the ones near where I was staying only had servings for multiple people and by the time Anna arrived all of the dinners had been arranged for the conference she was attending so tonight was our chance. We had already walked past one and when it has a bunch of really drunk businessmen out the front you know it’s going to be good, plus we were further encouraged when the menu screen at the table had a video of people with fried drumsticks for heads dancing (above, right). Our assumptions were correct, this is exactly what I had been wanting, and it was great, just kicking back eating fried chicken by the beach while laughing at plastered men in suits.
Our first day in Busan and that weird photo of our dogs:
Friday, July 3, 2026
Today was going to be all about eating and when I saw sea squirt porridge I immediately wanted to try it as well as know what a sea squirt is:
Ascidiacea, commonly known as the ascidians or sea squirts, is a paraphyletic classin the subphylum Tunicata of sac-like marine invertebrate filter feeders. Ascidians are characterized by a tough outer test or “tunic” made of the polysaccharide cellulose.
Cool, but what do they taste like?
Various ascidians are eaten by humans around the world as delicacies.
Sea pineapple (Halocynthia roretzi) is cultivated in Japan (hoya, maboya) and Korea (meongge). When served raw, they have a chewy texture and peculiar flavor likened to “rubber dipped in ammonia” which has been attributed to a naturally occurring chemical known as cynthiaol. Sea peach (Halocynthia aurantium) and false sea squirt (Halocynthia hilgendorfi) are also eaten in Korea, where they are known as bidan meongge (silk meongge) and dol meonggae (stone meongge) respectively.
I can’t say I’ve ever eaten rubber or drunk ammonia, but if I had to guess, sea squirt didn’t taste like either, it was actually quite nice and a little chewy. Anyway, our day was going to be based around visiting markets, the first being one for fresh food, mostly seafood, but obviously we weren’t grocery shopping. Instead the main plan was to make the walk over to Jagalchi Market for another unique bite to eat:
Jagalchi Market, located on the seaside road in Busan’s Jung-gu, is one of the largest seafood markets in Korea, selling both live and dried fish. After the Korean War, the market solidified itself as a fish market. Most of the people who sell fish are women, so the vendors here are called Jagalchi Ajumeoni, “ajumeoni” meaning middle-aged or married woman in Korean.
This market represents Busan and is famous throughout the country. Visitors can eat fresh raw fish right at the market. Even nowadays visitors can see women selling mackerel, sea squirts (ascidians) and other seafood on wooden boxes along the road outside of the market and along the shore.
See the octopus for yourself, first on the plate and then in my chopsticks:
The night was still young and we hadn’t eaten a whole lot at the market so after wandering around rows of street food stalls in a night market we grabbed a seat at one for more food, predominantly plates of conches. As we continued around the stalls we found an entire street of tents with tarot card readers. It’s not uncommon to find one or two fortune tellers in a lot of cities, but there had to be at least 50 of these tents in a row, even if only a few of them were busy.
Once done we settled into a pub for the evening and as usual, got chatting to people, this time a couple from the UK to close out the night.
Our first full day in Busan:
Saturday, July 4, 2026
We would be flying back to Singapore the following day so we figured that for our last day we should get out of the city and spend the afternoon walking along the coast. There was the option of taking a single-carriage light rail, but we wanted to get out on foot and this was going to be a very long walk on an extremely hot day. I hate the feeling of sand in and under everything so fortunately for me there was another path to follow that would have us sweating along the picturesque coastline, through bushland, and past carved totem poles. We spent about two hours wandering along this path with the occasional detour out onto bridges to take in the view and look at lighthouses, but then we reached a place that Anna could not resist. Despite being late in the afternoon we were both a bit peckish and she had found a restaurant, Nayeon’s Seafood Restaurant, that had a photo of grilled scallops beckoning her on the sign so we entered and that’s what we had, as well as grilling some abalone and clams, followed by a bowl of seafood noodles each before turning around and making the long, sweaty trek back.
Naturally we had to shower back at the hotel before our later than usual dinner, a final Korean seafood meal consisting of nakgopsae, a spicy stew made with octopus, beef intestines, prawns, and glass noodles, Anna once more finding a restaurant that specialises in it, as well as something we love, but had forgotten to have, a bottle of makgeolli. After dinner we wanted to go out with a bang so we found another pub, passed a table of extremely patriotic Americans (probably military), and found our seat for the night. Even though we had met a couple the previous night, for some reason almost every time in a new city we always end up meeting a bunch of locals and tend to have the best night of the trip. On this occasion we ended up drinking and laughing with a group of local kids and once they had left we had another two pull up a seat with us, one interpreting the conversation to his friend. Why do we always have the most fun on the final night?!? (Actually, I think I know the answer to this one, we usually leave on a Sunday).
Wandering along the coast, eating miscellaneous crustaceans, and partying with people who were young enough to be our children:
We caught the KTX back to Seoul the next day and travelling at over 200 kph while seated backwards doesn’t do a lot for the stomach, but we arrived unscathed at Incheon International Airport and that was it for what was apparently my second time in Busan and our latest trip to Korea.
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