Bustling, Bright, Beachy Busan

We left off, my dear friends, as we boarded the fantastic KTX (bullet) train to Busan from Seoul. This train whisked us off quietly and quickly across the length of the country in just over two hours. I personally clocked us in at 170km/hr and the whole experience was efficient, seamless, and quite a reasonable price, as well; at $65/ticket, we got to our destination at half the cost of a flight and with less stress.

While such comparisons should always be taken with a grain of salt, in this case I actually found it to be quite the apt comparison. The two cities do share several interesting parallels. For instance, Busan is on the opposite side of the country from Seoul (the presumed NYC of South Korea). It is also somewhat sprawling compared its city sister on the other coast; with less than a third of Seoul's population, Busan's geographic footprint is actually slightly larger. Furthermore, like LA county, Busan is home one of the largest seaports in the world.1 Busan is also a big movie hub and hosts the very well-known Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) each year (tragically, it is to take place just a few weeks after we have to depart). Finally, Busan hosts lovely beaches, beautiful coast views, and bucolic weather (aside from the occasional typhoon, but LA's got fires, so...)

Shadie and I had the pleasure of glimpsing many of these aspects of Busan during our five-day stay here. While Shadie worked remotely, I went to visit the Museum of Movies and B International Film Festival Square, where, like Hollywood, the street features marks of famous Korean and other films stars. The museum had a mix of general film history and film history specific to Busan, where Korean cinema got its start. This museum also had entertaining exhibits to experience filming techniques with hands-on activities, which culminated in editing your own short film at the end!2

Footnotes:

1) According to worldshipping.org, Busan's ranks the 6th largest globally while LA is 17th.

2) Arguably, Korean cinema is just coming into its own in a big way, showing off its ability share strong messages on the screen and make million with films like Parasite and TV shows like Squid Games making it big across the world.

3) I found the geography of Busan to be totally confounding. With its complex set of finger poking into the sea, and dozens of bridges crossing between these, islands, and river, as well as its sheer size and arcing shape, I found I constantly had to refer to the map to understand which section of the city we were in.

4) In coming to Korea, I realized how very little I knew about Korea or its history. And despite having visited the Korean War Memorial many times in DC, I knew very little of the details of the war and how it played out. If you're interested, the Wikipeda article on the Battle of Pusan Perimeter, provides a rather interesting slice of that saga.

5) An alternate translation of Busan, Pusan is still used sometimes.

We visited Haeundae Beach, supposedly the best beach in all of South Korea. I was personally underwhelmed by the beach itself, which in my humble opinion did not match southern California's vibes. But just beyond the beach, a boardwalk set among the trees just above the coastline and provided a wonderful walkway with views out over the Sea of Japan and the many islands that dotted the coast. Alongside the boardwalk, runs a cute little train, which one could hop on and off of from various portions of the walk.

We got other fantastic views hiking the coast of the various peninsulas and island that make up boundaries of Busan3. At Songdae Sky Park, we got a glimpse of that giant international seaport as well beautiful skies, and strangely, very well animated dinosaur statues. The hike culminated with a sky cable car ride over the ocean just before sunset (we misgauged sunset itself despite concerted efforts). We did successfully catch one the best sunsets I ever witnessed hiking along Taejongdae Resort Park, which, felt very much local attraction and few other westerners were there.

Despite it's laidback California vibes, Busan has a rather tragic past. The city only became a major population center after the beginning of the Korean War, when North Korea invaded, overtaking Seoul and forced its way south into the country down to the Pusan5 Perimeter. Busan became a major refugee center during the war. A shanty town, Gamcheon, was raised by these refugees, and spread up from the fishing town into the steep surrounding hills. In recent years, Gamcheon town residents and South Korean government (in a rather savvy marketing move if I do say so myself) transformed this shanty into a tourist attraction through public art. Now known as the Gamcheon Cultural Village, this area is a delightful feast to the eyes. You may gaze up at small brightly painted colored box homes rising up haphazardly into the hill and wander insanely narrow alleys and staircases to find quirky murals, statues, and installations.

Other call-outs to this period of Busan history are all over the place. One afternoon, I walked along the Bosu Book Street, full of used book shops extending out into the narrow street with shelves of books of every variety and topic. This street of books apparently also came to be when evacuees from North Korea opened a street stall, laying boxes of books and old magazines out for sale to try and make a living; meanwhile students and other intellectuals in the area had difficult accessing books due to the war, so a profitable and beneficial trade began. Later that day I passed the 40-step stairway, where a statue and accompanying plaque explained this spot was meet-up point for evacuees to find each other after the invasion.

A far less historic, but equally delightful find for Shadie and I was Busan's iteration of the Lotte Department Store. This behemoth, made up of two 13 story buildings (and 6 stories of underground parking) was our regular haunt. Busan Lotte had it all:

• an incredible (and free) rooftop garden, which included a dog park and epic views over the city

• a fully stocked grocery story in which we picked up quick breakfasts and daily essentials

• a full floor of high-end furniture, including a massage chair we "tried out" for an inappropriate amount of time

• a grand central fountain that played water shows to sound and colored lights in the evenings

• a gallery of onggi pots (which I learned to make in my pottery class the week prior), from one of the most famous ceramists in the country

• and three full levels of restaurants, from quick-snack stalls to fine dining, and one particular establishment that served a pistachio ice cream topped with coconut chips that was to die for. We went back several times.

I am not, nor have ever been, a particular fan of malls or department stores, but the Busan Lotte really stole our hearts.

Busan provided a lovely counterpoint to Seoul's dense urban core. Like LA, I found the sprawl made some sites a bit far to reach. Unlike LA, an amazing high-speed rail connects to the other world-class city in under three hours (*California high speed rail fail, cough, cough*.) From here we catch an overnight ferry to the "Hawaii of Korea" aka Jeju island. Until next time!

And so, we came to disembark in Busan, South Korea's second largest city, and a place the tourist industry has tagged the "Los Angeles of South Korea".

Lots of chances to get in frame of famous motion pictures at BIFF Museum!

Top: A view from our hike along the peninsula reveals a portion of the major seaport. Bottom: An amazing sunset on walk along the cliffs of Busan's Yeongdo island

Top: Gamcheon Cultural Village. Bottom: Enjoying testing out the massage chairs on sale at the Lotte Department Store.

I nearly forgot to mention some food highlights in Busan, of which there were several. Notably, the aforementioned pistachio ice cream. But also, very fresh seafood served by attentive ajummas at the famous Jagalchi Fish Market (Shadie got is whole fish, and Dana totally avoided her mysterious fish allergic reaction, yay!). And finally, very fresh dumplings served up in the Chinatown area! I guess that is another similarity to LA; yummy food!