Dynamic Busan Weekend- Part 1

We spent this weekend down in Busan, major port city on the southeastern coast. The weather was beautiful there, warm enough to go to beach, cool enough to warrant carrying around a light sweater. The sun never really came out, and the sky was never really blue, just as in Seoul. It gets very bright but not sunny. And it doesn't rain, either. Strange, but overall very pleasant.

This is the view from S.'s dad's apartment in Busan. AMAZING.

Being right next to the sea, Busan has an exquisite selection of fresh seafood. We took a trip to the Jagalchi seafood market to look around.

It was a big market, and the ahjummas and ahjussis running the stalls did not hesitate to come up to us as we walked pass, telling us to look at this and look at that. We weren't planning on eating anything there, but after walking around we decided we might as well. I'm not sure if it usually works this way at fish markets, but here we could go to a stall, buy whatever seafood we want to eat, and take it to a restaurant to have it as a full meal for a small price.

If I remember correctly, we bought three fish, one of each of the ones pictured above except the type in the bottom right corner. I also wanted to try this shellfish I've never seen before. It's sort of peach-colored with a red tip that looks like it has horns coming out of it. I think they ended up throwing that in for free, since I only wanted one. In total they cost 20000 won, or about 18 USD. The ahjummas cleaned and scaled the fish and cut up the meat into little slices for us. We then brought it to the restaurant upstairs for a full meal.

Here's a close-up of the raw fish, or hoe (회).

They gave us a couple of sauces to dip them in, and we could either eat it straight or wrap it in lettuce or mint leaves. Even though I couldn't really tell the difference between the three types of fish with regards to flavor, the natural sweetness and chewiness of the meat were interesting and memorable.

And then there was the soup. Made with many things but primarily with fish bones, it was an intensely flavorful complement to the sweet simplicity of the hoe.

Ahh I think that was my favorite part. The strange shellfish tasted okay. The meal ended up costing about 14 USD, which I hope is decent, since I don't really have any other reference point. Partway into our meal, we realized that we forgot to haggle downstairs! Totally disregarded street market etiquette. Shame on us.

Afterwards we took a walk around the neighborhood. There was a street market nearby selling food and clothes and trinkets and the like. We strolled down a couple of quiet alleyways, and guess what we saw...

And here's an example of some Korean street art.

Monofame and Kisada are actually names of clothing stores just opposite this wall. Interesting blend of public/private, no?