**Note: I was gonna put this post up at the airport but the Wi-Fi connection wasn't strong enough! Anyway, here goes:
(14th of September) Greetings from Doha! I'm making my way back to London today and thought I should update this blog that I've been neglecting for some time now, while waiting for my next flight.
My parents and I went on a trip to Korea two weeks ago; we started off at Busan and ended in Seoul. It was my second visit there as I went to Ulsan and Seoul with Zhao Feng and Eunice last summer (here are some photos of the trip on my old tumblog), but this year's vacation was an entirely different experience. For one, we didn't have a guide who could speak the language this time, whereas we had Bong and Jung Hwan to bring us around last year.
If I have to rate the level of difficulty of going around without knowing the language, I'd go for... 7/10 (10 being most difficult!) However, we were very fortunate 'cos we met some really nice people who patiently helped us get on the right public bus with the right amount of change and all that. Kudos to hand language! :)
We arrived at Busan just before noon, and after checking into our hotel rooms we headed for Taejongdae. It's quite a big place; nice sea view and a rocky beach (even had an auntie/ahjumma selling fresh sashimi but we didn't go for that 'cos my stomach wasn't feeling too good then), and I would recommend that you bring some food for picnic 'cos it's a perfect spot for that kinda thing (although as tourists we won't bother to do that).
Jagalchi market was absolutely fun. Seafood were sold fresh, and when I say fresh, I meant to say that they're still alive. Breathing, swimming, climbing. When the ahjumma wasn't looking, this silly octopus tried to escape its fate but my dad ruined it by picking it up and throwing it back into the basin (EEE!!!)
If you intend to try some of the seafood, and in this case I'll say that you MUST, go for the ones in the indoor market. The level of hygiene there is great and there's a better control of freshness. Also, Seoul's seafood are mostly from Busan so they're definitely cheaper here.
There were sooo many kinds of weird-looking seafood but we went for the familiar ones. The idea is to pick your seafood, pay, then go upstairs and they'll cook them for you. They'll also charge you a small fee for the side dishes.
Here's where I started disliking dishonest shopkeepers who try to take advantage of foreign tourists. Firstly, the shop lady picked out a skinny crab but my mom noticed that, so she requested to get a bigger one of her choice. Skinny crabs have no meat, we all know that. Secondly, my dad did his research online before our trip and found out that it costs 3,500 won per head for the side dishes, but we were charged 4,000 – well that's fine, not too much of a difference. The annoying part is that they gave us a miserable variety of dishes but we saw the next table having more choices, and I'm guessing that it's because they are local customers. Maybe I'm just being judgmental, or maybe it's just another disadvantage of not knowing how to order for more in Korean.
But of course, fresh seafood can never go wrong. Ever.
Check out these babies!
After our meal, we walked around the dried fish market and saw lotsa interesting things. Dried whale meat too, ugh. And a whale is not even a fish?
Next post soon, byeee!
