Busan, formerly known as Pusan, is South Korea's second most-populous city after Seoul, with a population of over 3.5 million inhabitants. It is the economic, cultural and educational center of southeastern Korea, with its port—Korea's busiest and the 9th-busiest in the world- only about 120 miles from the Japanese islands of Kyushu and Honshu. The surrounding "Southeast Economic Zone" (including Ulsan and South Gyeongsang) is now South Korea's largest industrial area.
During the Korean War, Busan was one of only two cities in South Korea not captured by the North Korean army within the first three months of the war, the other being Daegu. As a result, the cities became refugee camp sites for Koreans during the war.
As Busan was one of the few areas in Korea that remained under the control of South Korea throughout the Korean War, for some time it served as a temporary capital of the Republic of Korea. UN troops established a defensive perimeter around the city known as the Pusan Perimeter in the summer and autumn of 1950. Since then, the city has been a self-governing metropolis and has built a strong urban character. Source: Wikipedia
Busan, South Korea
Where in the world are we?
For a ‘travel by the seat of our pants’ day, our visit to Busan turned out to be a lot of fun. I was up fairly early, and was happy to see bright sunshine and the clearest blue sky we’ve seen since our arrival in Asia. Furthermore, the air was dry, arid even. But the forecast wasn’t wrong; the high for the day was barely above freezing. My walk across the Lido Deck, which was so sultry we sometimes walked down the stairs one deck just to get to the Horizon Court Buffet in air conditioning less than two weeks ago, required a coat today.
We lingered over breakfast. South Korea required a face to face immigration, and we were assigned group numbers to spread out the process for all 3000 passengers on board. We drew the short straw and were in one of the last groups, with an expected disembarkation time of 11:20am (the ship arrived at 9am). That wasn’t optimal, but it didn’t hamper our day too much. We bundled up with everything we’d brought (coats, fleeces, wool hats, gloves and a scarf for me) and walked off the ship with our passports. Immigration was basically a walk-through.
Our first task was to get some local currency. A truck with a trailer had been parked in the terminal parking lot with two ATMs and a money changer. We still had about US $35 in Hong Kong dollars that we wanted to use, so I stood in the line for the money changer and exchanged it for 36000 South Korean Won. Then we moved to a much longer line for a free shuttle bus into town. It was just after noon by the time we boarded the bus and were on our way to the city, about a 10 minute drive.
We were dropped off on a major street about midway between the tall Busan Tower and the famous Busan Fish Market. Naturally, G wanted to go to the Observation Deck at the top of the tower, and we made our way to it the long way, walking down some pedestrian shopping and restaurant streets and climbing up the hill on which the tower is located. (Had we approached it from the front, there were several escalators to take us up the hill; live and learn.) The Busan Tower was built in 1973 strictly for entertainment purposes, and the views from the top on such a clear day were beautiful.
Pedestrian streets
Street food is ubiquitous in Asia
Another city, another tower :-)
Old and new
Sapphire Princess in Busan, South Korea
Ships at anchor in Busan Harbor
I thought the mountains looked rather like those in MASH (which was filmed in Southern California)
In a gift shop in the tower, I saw some greeting cards with several different styles of removable cutouts of traditional Korean attire that could be folded and displayed. I loved these, and, had I been in the accumulating stage of life, would have purchased one of each to display on a bookcase in my travel (aka sewing) room. Alas, I had to settle for taking photos of just a few of them.
Gujangbok, formal attire worn by the Emperor and Crown Prince
Dangui, a dress worn by the Empress
Hanbok, traditional Korean attire worn by women
Hanbok, traditional Korean attire worn by men
We made our way back down the hill using the steps next to the escalator (which only went up) and continued to the waterfront to see Busan’s famous fish market. It was largely set up along one street, and most of the vendors sold from stalls, not store fronts. Fish markets are always fascinating photo ops for us, but most of the people there were serious shoppers. I honestly wouldn’t have a clue what to do with most of the seafood we saw. And there were several kinds of seaweed, which is several minus one more kinds than I previously knew existed.
Ornamental cabbage clock
Not sure what this is; there was nothing in English
Korean Buddha
Buddhist urban temple
Busan fish market
Fish market stalls
Portable seaweed
What does one do with these?
I collect shells that aren’t this pretty!
More seaweed
Where does one even start to make dinner out of this?
Cooking on the street
Fish pies
Fish sticks
By 4pm we were standing in another line, this one for a return shuttle to the ship. We timed that just right; we had to wait for just two buses, but the line grew much longer after we were in it. Once back in the terminal, we passed through immigration again, turned in our passports (again…I guess we don’t get them back until Shanghai), and were in our cabin by 4:30pm. It felt so good to warm up!
The sun set just before the Sapphire Princess sailed at 6pm, and we watched from our dinner table as the ship went under the Gwangandaegyo Bridge, with LED lights in changing colors. It was quite a sight! At 8pm, production show Do You Wanna Dance, postponed from a couple of nights ago due to rough seas, was performed. As we watched it, I realized that neither male vocalist was performing (their voices are pre-recorded in case they can’t perform). I think they may have been down one female dancer, too. I don’t know what’s going on, but I hope they don’t have the crud we’ve been trading back and forth.
Sail away under the beautiful Gwangandaegyo Bridge
LED lights change colors
Tomorrow’s port of Nagasaki, Japan will be our final port of call this season, our 56th port day and 39th different city…and we’ve only played hooky on two days: Ravenna, Italy and one Singapore turnaround. It’s been a marathon of the funnest, most interesting kind, and, though we definitely have mixed emotions about our cruise season coming to the end, we are not unhappy the finish line is in sight. These cold days are not generally what we look for when we cruise, and a few weeks of highs around 80 that we’ll have in Hawaii are sounding better and better.