South Korea Day 1: The Park, The Tower, The Street.

One minute I was in a quiet park, cherry blossoms drifting like snow to the ground, a few locals taking blossom photos and a temple cat dozing in the sun. Two minutes, a staircase, and a blind begger away I was blasted with noise, light, smell, and the frenetic energy of a million people all eating and talking and walking and cooking and selling and buying and... you get the picture.

That was at the end of the day, mind you.  All was quiet when I ventured out into Busan in the early morning, seeking breakfast. Sunlight filtered through a laneway of cherry blossoms just around the corner from our hotel. The street stalls were all shut, the streets deserted apart from one bicycle wobbling along under an enormous load of cardboard.

 

After breakfast we wandered through crowded back streets crammed with little shops selling all sorts of nuts and bolts, and then through market stalls of spices, ceramics, and fish. 

Utility bicycle. These were everywhere.

Waiting to be eaten.

Our goal was the Busan Citizens Park which was a delightful surprise given we knew nothing about its long and nuanced history as a military base for first the Japanese Imperial and then the United states Armies.

One of the original guard towers.

We spent a happy hour or so in the Museum, and another couple of hours wandering and enjoying the cherry blossoms and flowers.

On our way back home we lunched at an eccentric establishment on the edge of the markets. The restauranteer yelled at us to take off our shoes and vigorously questioned our menu choices, in the end exerting dominance and making executive menu decisions. Creepy crawlies wandered across the floor, causing the young Korean girl next to us to shriek, leap on her chair, and spend her mealtime squatting there without letting her feet touch the floor. It wasn't a big creepy crawly: the owner picked it up with a tissue and summarily disposed of it. Creepy crawlies aside, the meal was a feast.

In the evening we headed out again to BIFF Square and street, so called because this was where the Busan International Film Festival is held every year.  

On the way there we stopped off at the Busan Tower for me to get my fix of high places while Roger had snacks on terra firma and googled earthquake statistics.

"There's no way that thing will stay up in an earthquake, you know!"

The view was stunning, from Busan's beautiful bridges, the Port, the skyscrapers, and beyond them all the green hills frothed with cherry blossom.

Mind you, up at the tippy top of the Tower, standing with my toes against the window sill and with only a pane of (hopefully well reinforced) glass between me and clear (ok, smoggy) air,  I became acutely aware of how much the Tower swayed even on a very still day.  And there were cracks in the concrete floor which my brain told me to disregard as irrelevant but the rest of me registered them all too well and developed a slightly spooked hankering for good old ground. Not enough to stop me running around and taking lots of photos before I caught the lift back down though.

Back at ground level the park was quiet. The cat rested peacefully on the verandah of the pagoda, and a couple swung gently in swings provided by Busan for purposes of public swinging (not that kind of public swinging, you ninny!) while cherry blossoms fluttered gently to the ground. We walked down flights of steps, caught an elevator to street level and bam! This was where we started, wasn't it, with the brightly lit, flashing-lights, noisy, world of tourist land, complete with Gucci, Nike, and who knows what other shrines to capitalism as well. Look at me, getting all cranky old lady about recreational shopping.

A fair dinkum Korean BBQ joint.

Not to say the noisy street wasn't fascinating in its own way. Street vendors provided endless options for dinner, dessert, and all snacks in between. Fish swam lazily in crowded tanks, waiting to be cooked. Motorbikes nudged through the crowd, along with bicycles and the occasional delivery van. Artworks popped up in unexpected places, as did posters of Korea's latest boy band.

We caught the train home in the dark. The blind begger on the subway steps had packed up and gone home. It was time for bed.