South Korea- Part 3

Its been about a week since I've returned from my amazing trip to Korea I can still remember the smells, sounds, and people of this beautiful country. This is my last post and I hope you have enjoyed the photographs as much as I have enjoyed sharing them.

Throughout my trip I took a photo of my meals and here are some of them. As you can see many of the meals are family style with a central dish allowing for a very social and interactive eating experience.

The full moon rises over Haeundae Beach.

A fisherman with the skyline of Busan in the background.

Busan Museum of Modern Art.

Old world meets new as this old lady sells roasted chestnuts to young kids going out for the night.

Businesses with signs everywhere.

A fisherman with the East China Sea slowly fading into night.

The Jalgachi Fish Market is the largest fish market in Korea and its truly a sight to be seen. Picture narrow one lane alley ways jam packed with booths of hundreds of people selling thousands of products. It seems to go on forever with each new turn revealing another endless ally way of peddlers selling dried seafood, live seafood, restaurants with huge pots full of steaming soups and all the while scooters whizzing past weaving in and out of the hordes of people.

One of the coolest parts was where you could pick out a fish that's still alive swimming in a tank and have it prepared for you in an upstairs restaurant. We were walking around this section taking photos and generally looking like typical white tourists gaping at all the weird and crazy seafood that seemed like common items to them. We were approached by the man below who spoke some english and he talked us into getting these two fish to eat. After our purchase he quickly went to work as we were escorted upstairs to get a table. He cut half the fish up in thin slices of sashimi and the other half was grilled. This was one of my best experiences here in Korea and one I'll never forget.

The Jalgachi Fish Market and nearby Nampo-Dong Market are mazes of side streets and narrow roads that a car can barely drive down if at all. It was a little information overload at these places but after a bit I was sort of able to navigate around and I quickly found interesting things to photograph.

 

I don't consider myself a people photographer, but when I would walk around these markets I couldn't help to want to capture the people that were the backbone of this thriving economy. Mostly women run these booths and they have a rough exterior working very hard everyday but some were nice enough to let me take a couple photos of them.

And I leave you with this parting shot of the Diamond Bridge which is one of the main visual focal points of the city of Busan. At night it is brilliantly lit up making for some beautiful photographs. 

South Korea- Part 2

The first weekend I was there we decided to rent some scooters and take a trip up north to Gyeongju to see some temples and all that fun touristy stuff. Just getting the scooters was an adventure in itself blindly giving the cab driver a piece of paper with instructions written in Korean in hopes he'll drop us off in the right spot. It had started raining that morning and by the time we found the rental shop and were ready to go it was at a full downpour. The rental guy was nice enough to go grab some ponchos for us but that only delayed our soak. With some luck and some iffy driving on a bike lane by the river, we made it back to the appartment to get ready for the trip.

Now I'm pretty good with a map and have a good sense of direction, but I was a little overwhelmed at our journey ahead. The idea of being in a strange place and not speaking the language and not really knowing for sure of how to get there made me a little nervous. We were pointed in a general direction and were soon off with a terrible tourist map and a general idea of where to go. The internet said it was one hour away, but I soon realized it would be at least 3 maybe 4 hours of driving on the side of the road on roads we weren't sure we should be on.(You can drive a scooter on a major highway right?) We actually did pretty well and made it safely to our hotel with time to warm up and grab some dinner.

Some rice fields along the way. Notice our stylish scooters.

Rice fields.

A neat tunnel alone the way.

The Mexicana restaurant.

We found this little restaurant not far from the hotel. It was called "Mexicana" and instantly I started to get in the mood for some taco's or burritos it was going to be great....but instead they served fried chicken. It was actually pretty good and the owner was really nice and actually sat down with us for over 20 minutes telling us in broken english which temples we should see tomorrow.

Our tour guy helping us get around. I liked the uniform/roadside construction vest.

There were plenty temples to be found and we spent the next day and a half exploring many of them. Some had been rebuilt to resemble them in their former glory, but some were actually original dating back almost 2000 years. It was amazing to see the architecture of the buildings and how complex some of the sites were. I even found a pagoda in the middle of a rice field that seemed to go unnoticed by everyone. 

Kids getting drinking water from a spring.

Women selling roasted chestnuts, mushrooms and silkworm pupa. We had the chestnuts...

I saw this shot on the way up to a temple and just had to get it on the way back. This spring came right out of the wall and it seemed the locals relied on it heavily for their drinking water.

I was setting up for this shot when the perfect subject just happened to walk through.

Part of our lunch consisting of little anchovies and a larger salty fish.

One the second night in Gyeongju we stumbled upon this little festival setup for the Chuseok holiday weekend. They had everything from live clams and mussels, a full pig roasting and even some tasty corn dogs. Mine was a corn dog with another layer of potatoes on the outside...mmm. I also think they were serving skate or sting ray from the top right picture. They also had a band that was very entertaining to say the least. I'm not sure if this was a common thing or not but all the men were dressed as women. It was really fun to watch and being the only white people there I felt like we were seeing a really neat event that most people wouldn't get to see.

South Korea- Part 1

A view of the city of Busan.

 It has been about 9 years since I've been out of the country and when my girlfriend moved to Busan, Korea to teach english I was excited at the opportunity to explore this part of the world. Excited but nervous at the fact that I would be traveling alone to places where english isn't the dominant language. I would soon learn that pointing and smiling will get you far in any country. My journey would begin in Washington D.C. to stop in L.A. and then off to Beijing, China and finally to Busan, Korea.

 Getting off the plane in Busan I soon realized that I would be the obvious minority receiving stare after stare from passing citizens. Being the foreigner in a country where 99% of the population is of Korean ethnicity you could say that my blonde hair and blue eyes would catch some attention. It was humbling to be the outsider but in a way I liked the feeling of being out of place. Koreans though are one of the most friendly and hospitable people making me feel quite safe and welcome.

Waiting for the metro in D.C.

Beijing Airport.

Flying into Busan

Haeundae Fish Market. 

The first night I got there we walked to dinner and along the way we stopped by the Haeundae fish market. These markets have everything from live fish, dried fish, fruits, vegetables, seaweed and plenty of other things to look at. Later in the week we went to an even bigger one(I'll have a post for that soon)

Our first night we ate Galbi(BBQ) and it was amazing! Cooking beef and veggies over hot coals and wrapping it in mint or lettuce leaf was one of the best meals I've had. Cooking meals in front of you seemed to be the thing as most restaurants did this in one form or another.

Lauren getting into some Galbi(Korean BBQ)

The outside seating at our first dinner spot. The guy on the left was our server(notice him texting)

The next day I came to work with Lauren and I was fortunate enough to come during Chuseok which from what I gathered on Wiki is a harvest festival where Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of Korean traditional food. But I was excited because all the kids got dressed up in traditional outfits called Hambok's.

One of the teachers lent Lauren and I these outfits. They were called "hanbok's" which are the traditional wedding attire.

Lunch at one of the many amazing restaurants. They served shabu-shabu which is where you cook thin meat and veggies in a broth.

Stay tuned as I have plenty more to share!!!