As we left our hotel in Seoul and made our way to the train station light snow was falling. We could just see the Seoul Tower through the snowy sky in the distance. We were so lucky that it was such a beautiful sunny day with clear blue skies the day we walked to the top of Namsan Mountain to the base of the tower. Actually, although it had been bitterly cold every day in Seoul it was always sunny, apart from the day we landed in rain and ‘fog’ and the day we left. Glen’s planning is exemplary. (smile)
For anyone having visited Busan in the 1990’s thinking that I’ve got the name wrong read below.
‘Pusan changed its name to Busan back in 2000 with a revision in the Romanization system for the Korean alphabet.’
We visited the Gamcheon Culture Village. It is full of pastel coloured houses clinging to the coastal mountain, earning this village the nickname “Machu Picchu of Busan.” It has been decorated with murals and sculptures created by the residents. It used to be a slum area full of war refugees we read. It is now full of artwork and crafts and has something interesting to see at every turn. The steep alley ways have tiny shops and houses and interesting artwork tucked everywhere.
The ‘statue’ of a blonde haired boy sat on the wall next to a fox (Below) is ‘The little Prince and the Fox’, characters from a French story book by the same, written back in the 1940’s. For some reason it is a place that people flock to in the village and stand in line to have their photo taken next to. (from behind!) I need to read more about this. The queue was long so it must be important! Lol!
As always, we wanted to get a view from as high up as possible and, as always, we didn’t look at or follow a map. Instead we went ‘off piste’ and made our way up through, what we would call allotments in the UK. We weren’t sure if we were supposed to be there but a local man we passed, with a sack of some sort of veg on his back, didn’t seem to look cross. We said “hello” and he said a word that sounded more like “hello” than “what are you doing walking up here” so we kept climbing up. The narrow ‘path’ disappeared and a slippery stoney trail continued up through the dry vegetation. We saw a couple walking along above of us, right to left, on what we assumed was a proper path so we kept going. When we got to the top we were feeling uncomfortable. We looked at our legs and realised why they were prickling!
Who needs barbed wire or ‘keep out’ signs when nature pays back any trespassers with these cling on prickles!! We pulled the long bits off but the three tiny burrs on each long ‘seed’ clung on tightly to my leggings. I had to do the walk of shame up to the top of the hill! (Mountain as they call it) and now I think of it maybe that’s why the older local men and women who were exercising up there were not looking so friendly at me and wouldn’t return my smiles! They could see we had scrambled up through their ‘allotments’ ! Re the exercising, all the way up there, which is a long way from the village there were two exercise areas! One with weights in for goodness sake! We’ve seen that a lot the last month, exercise equipment high up on hills/mountains, as if walking up there, and back, wasn’t enough exercise. Hats off to them though, it was always older people using the equipment and stretching their legs up far higher then I could…. if I felt the need.
Anyway I thought of the stuff clinging to my clothes as the angry Korean cousin of our ‘Goosegrass, Cleavers or Sticky Willy Galium aparine’ or whatever it’s called ( I mentioned in a previous blog ) ………..“Sticky Willly!” I‘ve never heard it called that before! lol!
The Busan Tower, although nothing like as impressive as the Seoul Tower, was at least near to our hotel and easier to reach.
The view from the local Lotte department store roof was much better though.
Many years ago, when I was a teenager, I went to the ‘sea side’ in November and remember thinking that it was so much nicer than in the summer. On a warm summer day by the seaside in England people show much more of their white bodies than should be legal. And that’s just walking around the amusement arcades and bucket and spade shops! 🙈 In the winter those sandcastle building implement shops are closed and all the pale bodies are well covered. (mine included)
We took the subway to the beach. So, at the ‘seaside’ in December in South Korea we were expected freezing winter temperatures with a bracing wind blowing off the Yellow sea or the Sea of Japan, but it was actually the warmest day we’d had and no wind at all
We had a variety of beaches to choose from in Busan, we chose Dadaepo Beach. In 2015 there was a ’Sea Art Festival’ and some of the Innovative sculptures were still there.
Caption competition….
The sculpture is 8 metres high and is called ‘shadow of shadow (alone)’ by Young-Won KIM (Korea) ……I wonder if he is related to the two KIMs we met! 😉
Loved this huge dog sculpture. It was entitled ‘Pissing Contest!’ By Hyun-Wook SON (Korea) It’s 6metres high!
There was just enough wind for this man to get his impressive kite up, briefly as we arrived.
I promised myself that I would stop with the toilet updates, however, I went to one in the subway station that I need to tell you about. I pressed a button for what I assumed was the flush and instead of causing a deluge of water in to the pan I heard a man’s voice! I had obviously pressed some sort of ‘help/assistance’ button! The man kept talking and could obviously not understand me saying “sorry mistake”. I was concerned he might send someone to break down the door any minute, assuming I needed help. I tried to think of the most simple thing I could say that he might understand, I said “ok, ok” and he stopped talking to me. Lol! I just said to Glen. “What reason would someone have to press an emergency button requiring help in a toilet cubical!? Glen said “if you were to run out of paper!” Lol!
We had Buckwheat pillows in Pingyao (China) and now we had Buckwheat tea in South Korea! What’s with all the Buckwheat!?
Everyone had such straight faces and looked unfriendly, but in the main, if you engaged with them they were so lovely and any conversation with someone who spoke English usually ended in “Welcome to Korea”.
There were many people who did not engage at all even if we smiled and said hello but we are going to forget about those people and remember the friendly ones. The ones who walked up to us and struck up a conversation….. like this local gentleman.
OR the man who helped us top up our travel cards…. whether we needed help or not! He was a bit bossy but he was being very helpful bless him. There was also a kind lady who helped us out when we were on the wrong subway station platform and called for help via the intercom so we didn’t have to pay to change platforms… the list goes on.
We sat opposite a beautiful 40 something lady on the subway and I could see she had a key ring made out of the plastic bits like Eloise has at home. I kept looking at the key ring wanting to be able to talk to her about our hearts Eloise gave us and I realised she had noticed me looking, so I felt I had to say something. She couldn’t understand me so I got the plastic hearts out that Eloise had made for us to take on our travels “So you don’t forget me” ❤️ At first I think she thought I was saying we were showing our love for her 🙈😂 But then I showed her the hearts close up and pointed out that they were made of the same material (the plastic bits you make a design with, then iron over the back to melt them together. I think they call them Perler Beads now. The girls had them when they will little)
In the markets or on the side of the road people (mainly old ladies) were sat on tiny chairs selling their wares (fruit, flat sheets of seaweed, vegetables, dried seaweed, fish paste, cooked seaweed, tat, food wrapped in seaweed 😉 etc) They couldn’t leave their stalls (tables) so when they wanted lunch it was delivered to them on a huge round trays. Each tray had lots of tiny dishes of the usual type of food here which includes lots of side dishes full of broth, and various pickled veg. We saw women walking around with these trays stacked up on their heads, delivering the meals (covered in Newspaper) to these people. When we were walking down a back street (I don’t know why we keep doing that lol!) we came across the place where they were making up the trays of food. The used trays were stacked up outside and had loads of bones left in the little dishes, I would guess there was more bone than meat when they delivered them! Some of these old ladies should have been at home with a blanket over their knees not on the streets selling things on the cold Pavements at their age, and eating off a tray covered in newspaper!
We’ve only seen two or three groups of white people in the whole of Korea so we are a bit of an oddity and people stare at us or say hello (in Korean) although some just look straight faced and walk on. It’s funny when we catch people having a sneaky look at us or staring for so long that they fall forward on the subway because they forgot to hold on. lol!
All older women have jet black hair (presumably dyed) there were only one or two we saw who were going grey naturally. I wanted to talk to them to ask them whether it was natural or dyed but not many people could speak English. I smiled at loads though and some would pat the seat next to them to get me to sit down on the subway but that’s as far as it could go. So frustrating.
We were sat on a bench in the street eating some steamed wontons when a lady came out of a smart looking shop opposite. She had a lovely (for lovely read clean without any chips!) tea pot on a tray. She smiled at us and poured us both a hot cup of tea. She couldn’t speak English, it was such a lovely gesture. When we finished our street food and her hot tea we went in to thank her. She was so lovely, she didn’t understand one word of English (some can understand a few words) We took her photo even though she was shy. ☺️
We went to an area of Busan called Centum City. It had the worlds largest department store! Shinsegae. The prices made Harrods and Fortnum and Masons seem cheap! Such a contrast to the markets we’ve visited.
We had a nice hotel in Busan, the lady on Reception was friendly but didn’t speak the best English. When Glen tried to explain that the under floor heating was making our room too hot and could it be turned off she indicated ‘not possible’ but when Glen said we are too hot (by mime) she wrote down “if Dry wet towels and lay on floor!“ Glen said that would just cause steam and it would be just as hot. 😂
In the hotels, not only did they offer complimentary toiletries, slippers, water, toothbrushes and snacks they offered Eye drops! We’ve seen people in the street, on the subway etc putting eye drops in. The air is very dry here (low humidity and not much rain) maybe that’s why.
There was a guy walking up and down selling gloves on the subway train! That’s him pulling the pink trolly. I’m sure that’s not allowed lol!
We noticed these pink pregnancy ‘buttons’ in the subway carriages. So I googled it up……
“Back in 2016 a new campaign began to remind South Korean commuters to give their seats to pregnant women. Called ‘the Pink Light Campaign, it distributes signal chips to pregnant women to carry around. When the signal chip enters a carriage it activates a dedicated pink light by the dedicated pregnant courtesy seat, alerting the person sitting there that a pregnant woman has entered the train and is standing. The light remains on until the woman has found a seat.”
How thoughtful is that! I’m surprised they didn’t have those in Japan!
Car park stacks! I don’t think I mentioned about the tiny car parks in Japan at every turn or how they had car parks where you drive into an opening and then they rotated out of sight. Here in Busan, instead of being stacked inside a larger building like in Japan so you didn’t notice them, the cars are stacked up for all to see. Great security.
We spent another morning walking around a local fish market, as you do.
We’ve enjoyed visiting South Korea. We had a nice balance even though we only stayed in two cities. Seoul was very cold and Busan was much milder and had a different feel by the harbours and further out to the beaches. We could stay here longer but we’ve had quite enough Kimchi so we’ve decided to make our way back to Seoul and fly to somewhere hot and less expensive.
We are now looking forward to re-visiting Chiang Mai in the North of Thailand for some Pad Thai noodles, Green and Red Thai curries and some R & R.
We went to Chiang Mai in 2014 so shouldn’t feel the need to be rushing out and about each day.
Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand
Wow looks like an amazing country Mandy, beautiful scenery and interesting looking food xx
It will be great for you to have a relaxing time over Christmas holidays xx
Super photos 😘
thanks Jane, half of these were taken by Mandy on her iPhone.
You can return to the UK the police have dropped all charges
What an experience you are having.
Such an amazing country.
Mum and Dennis x