South Korea’s bustling summer
With its many lovely beaches and a more relaxed lifestyle, Busan provides the perfect balance for a city and resort vacation.
ACITY is a city, and after a point, they all look the same. Skyscrapers outline the horizon, congested traffic snake along the roads and only the varying levels of pollution loosely demarcate the difference between them all.
The world has become so much smaller, thanks to cyberspace, globalisation and nondescript office structures, and whether you are in New York, Sydney, Seoul or Kuala Lumpur, one inevitably gets swallowed up by the hollowness of city living.
I confess I don’t really care much for Seoul. The only thing that’s etched in my mind about the city is its crazy shopping hours and despite being a self-professed shopaholic, there’s only so much buying one can do at 3am without being incoherent at that hour.
Busan, however, is rather low-key and has more of a resort-feel, and in my personal opinion, a friendlier introduction to K-culture.
The second largest city in South Korea after Seoul, it has a population of 3.6 million people living in a lovely harmony of mountain, sea and city.
It also chalks up a number of “firsts” as it’s home to Korea’s largest beach, longest river and largest trading port (world’s fifth busiest seaport); world’s largest department store, the Shinsegae Centum City; largest seafood market, Jagalchi Market; and one of the few if not the only place in the world where you can find a 3D K-Pop cinema. By the way, Busan is also dubbed Cannes of Asia, and has its own version of Hollywood’s Walk Of Fame, where famous Korean stars leave their imprint on the cemented street.
There was no time to read up on Busan as deadlines were looming so I had no idea what it had to offer when I flew in on Air Asia X’s inaugural flight. Maybe that was a good thing because then, one has no preconceived notions and expectations.
Located on the southern-most tip of the Korean peninsula, Busan is designated as a metropolitan city, and has its fair share of shopping malls and street shops. Apart from Centum City and the many Lotte department stores (including a Lotte premium outlet at Jangyu), there’s stuff to be bought at Seomyeon underground shops, Foreigner’s Street and Haeundae Traditional Market, just to name a few of the places that we visited.
Apart from the Jagalchi Market, a number of smaller fish markets abound, given its reputation as a premier port; just a couple of streets behind Seacloud Hotel on Haeundae where we were staying, there was one. I’m not suggest- ing that tourists should be lugging back crates of fresh fish and seafood aside, there are really so many interesting sights and sounds to savour from these small (and may I stress, safe) alleys.
Besides the abundance of seaweed (Korea is truly seaweed country) and fish products, I was fascinated by the many small restaurants which more or less offered similar menus – particularly, octopus and eel – and an shellfish. Eel, I can fathom, name unagi has elevated
and it’s actually quite draw the line at eating