Busan 2

October 26, 2019- Busan 2

We have a hippo . Duncan wandered around on her own last night and found one. Picture attached.

My brain has developed an auto-correct. This morning Jinny was telling us something about important colors. I immediately knew it was important scholars. Yeah!

The argument between S. Koreans about whether the US military should stay or not may be moot. We passed an enormous building with a gold sign “Trump World “glaring at us. The entire bus booed. If he has business interests here, he’ll protect them.

The weather was sunny and warmer than expected. It helped lighten the solemnity of our visit to the UN Memorial Park. The orientation video started with a quote, “they gave their lives today for the tomorrow of Korea.” It ended with words we use in our memorial (yizkor) service, “in the rising of the sun and in it’s going down, we remember them.” Fort- one thousand people from twenty one countries died. The US tends to bring its dead home, so there were only a few American graves. It’s a beautiful burial park and moving site.

Traffic caused Jinny to change our schedule. At least she’s flexible when needed. We headed for the Busan Tower to look down on the modern construction of which Koreans are so proud. Another elevator ride to another view. We had coffee in the sun and bussed to lunchee.

Lunch presented us with cart after cart of platters until our table and stomachs could hold no more. Among the offerings were acorn jelly (tasteless), frozen ahi wrapped in dried seaweed, duck, baby ginseng root dipped in sweet sauce, and whole fish which I cannot abide looking at let alone eat. We were given time to walk off our meal in the surrounding market where American pop blared from shops. We wanted to cap off lunch with a sweet, but passed up turkey ice cream. We did try what they call S’more ice cream. It’s chocolate ice cream surrounded with frozen marshmallow meringue that is blow torched. It was pretty good although the ice cream was too frozen to have a bold flavor.

We walked to the nearby fish market. We had an hour there, but, number one, we’d been to many such markets, and, number two, David couldn’t stand the smell. The custom there is interesting, though. You can buy your fish on the first floor and take it upstairs where they’ll cook it for a fee and give you the all- important Korean side dishes.

Onward we went up to the Gamcheon Cultual Village. It’s an older and less desirable area where the elderly people have remained. Younger ones prefer to live lower down, in newer apartments closer to work. The village is now a tourist destination lined with shops and cafes. The view is lovely with pastel houses cascading down the hillside. It reminded me of the favellas in Brazil only cleaner and drug free.

Our group dinner was within walking distance of our hotel. Belinda and Kent, the newly-married youngsters (50’s) brought the rice wine they’d purchased at the brewery. It was a hoot watching them shake then try to open the bottle without having it explode. Imagine trying that with champagne. They poured, we toasted, and the meal began. This was a raw fish restaurant, but four of us didn’t eat raw. Platters of cooked salmon and rock fish (aka ocean perch or redfish) were distributed...enough to feed twice our number. As the raw fish was paraded to our table, one platter seemed to squirm. When I realized it was recently hacked up live baby octopus, I squirmed, yelped, and took a photo. I didn’t post it since I couldn’t capture the movement or sound of people gasping. Other than Jinny, some of the group tried it...after it was still. As for the rock fish, although it was headless it was butterflied and had the tail. I didn’t eat it and could not wait for it to be cleared.

Tomorrow we take off for Jeju Island.

Toby

Hippo

Street Restaurant

S'more Ice-Cream