While Australia’s department stores shrink in size, Busan has the world’s largest: Shinsegae Centrum City. Excited by 13(?) levels of luxury shopping and entertainment?
Okay, maybe not. But it is air-conditioned and that’s a plus.
We catch the subway to Centrum City, emerge into one of the basement levels. Aside from the Shinsegae department store there are a variety of other stores, mostly chains. We pass through a laser show to another section of the mall. There’s a branch of YP (Youngpoon) Books, a gorgeous Korean bookstore which also sells a variety of stationery and assorted items of the kind that you wish you had a use for.
Alex buys a handheld portable fan. It proves useful.
It’s almost lunch and we haven’t had breakfast. Searching for food, we end up in Food Market, a series of food stalls mainly selling Korean, Japanese and Chinese cuisines. But first we buy the softest, most delicious cheesecake bread from one of the speciality stores in the adjacent market section.
My bulgogi bowl isn’t very tasty or filling. But I guess it’s not too unhealthy.
I want to go up to the ninth floor. On the way we stop by an H&M for a cheap skirt and pass the ice rink. Then up and up the escalators until we find the children’s play area, a lovely outdoor adventure area with life sized dinosaur models. Alex is a bit big for that kind of thing now, but there are good views from up there.
Sick of shopping, our next destination is on the other side of Busan. We return to Seomyeon on the subway and change trains to Jagalchi. From there we catch a minibus up to Gamcheon Culture Village. It’s a wild ride up some very narrow and steep streets.
Once a shanty town, the houses of Gamcheon are tightly squeezed together on the steep sides of the hill. In an effort to revitalise Gamcheon, the buildings were painted bright colours, numerous art works were created around the town and various tourist friendly enterprises were established.
Yes the main streets at the top are crowded with tourists and there are a lot of tacky souvenirs, but Gamcheon is a genuinely fascinating place. We follow the Basic Course down, the tour groups disappear and it is just us and a couple of others squeezing through the narrow paths between the rendered buildings.
There are art works inside some houses and others designed to be posed next to or just admired in the sun. In between, residents go about their daily lives and the odd car attempts to squeeze through the roads.
I feel that I could easily revisit Gamcheon and take it at an even slower pace. No wonder they let you post letters that will reach you in a year’s time.
There’s another little green bus pulling up when we reach the base of Gamcheon and the other two urge us aboard. We see the same European couple as on our bus there.
Both they, and us, realise at the same time that we are on the wrong bus and get off.
It’s a long, but interesting, ride back to Jagalchi. We pass a huge thermal power station, once coal, now gas. The fishing fleet is in dock and there is a cable car out over the harbour.
The bus deposits us close to Sindonga Fish Market, where the tours convince us to have a meal of the seafood that sits in the tanks and buckets beside them. There are eels and penis worms, sea squirts and squids.
B and Alex choose a meal of assorted sashimi and a clam stew. Fresh vegetables and cooked potatoes and peanuts are served with it.
I like neither shell fish nor sashimi and just watch them eat.
Afterwards we cross past the seafood restaurants to BIFF (Busan International Film Festival) Street, with its food stalls and famous movie name plaques in the pavement. The place is alive, but somehow we only order a freshly blended peach juice and B, a bean-filled doughnut.
We continue on and through Bupyeong Kkangtong Markets, though many stalls are closing for the day.
I don’t feel like eating tteokbokki or deep fried food, but B buys a couple of peaches.
The subway returns us to Seomyeon. On the way back B stops at an Ediya Coffee for a red bean bingsu, which none of us share. I buy a small tuna and mayonnaise onigiri for my dinner from a convenience store, Alex a bowl of instant noodles.
I should eat more, but I’m exhausted and they’re exhausted, so my last dinner in Korea isn’t very exciting at all.
Tomorrow we fly back to Japan.