A friend once told me this about her approach to teaching high school history: “If you start with George Washington, you may never get to Abigail Adams. But if you start with Abigail, you’ll eventually get to George.” Begin with the obvious, essentially, and you might never go beyond it. I feel similarly about travel. For decades, I’ve made it my practice to visit a country’s “second” attractions first. Starting slightly further afield leads me to something richer, more unexpected. In this age of overtourism, it’s also a way to avoid the disappointing throngs at classic locales, and to give some relief to the exhausted locals. I may have to search a bit harder for things to do, see, or eat, but the payoff is often a relationship to a place less popularized with American travelers. It’s why I spent weeks in Hiroshima, Japan, before getting to know Tokyo; I tooled around Bydgoszcz, Poland, before setting foot in Warsaw. And it’s why last summer, on my first trip to Korea, I skipped Seoul and flew south to Busan, a port town of about 3.4 million people that sits between the East Sea and Mount Geumjeong. I was drawn to Busan by the promise of natural beauty and urban bustle—beaches and hiking trails, museums and markets, spas and temples—as well as its history. Japan launched its occupation of Korea from Busan, fully colonizing the country between 1910 and the end of World War II. In 1950, a few years after liberation, the Soviet-backed Northern troops captured the entire peninsula during the Korean War of 1950–1953—except for the slice around Busan, which U.S.-led international forces held strong. The city became the Republic’s temporary capital. The legacy of tranquility and turbulence, I’d heard, gave Busanites a reputation for pragmatism as well as for warmth. It also, apparently, made Busan a city unlike any other in Korea, a place where visitors can feel like time travelers, immersed at once in a complicated past and a vibrant present. In Busan, red crab is one of the many things on offer at the all-seafood Jagalchi Market; the Songdo Cloud Walk, a nearly 1,200-foot bridge, extends over the sea. Busan curls along the coastline, long and thin, stretching from the newer beach resorts of the north through a buzzy cosmopolitan center to the older neighborhoods of the south. I started at the bottom, where my hotel was a quick stroll from the mainland across a drawbridge on Yeongdo Island. Yeongdo is an area in transition, a working port where upscale restaurants in renovated warehouses have sprung up next to dimly lit shipyard suppliers. My first morning, I wandered the narrow backstreets, past stacks of neatly folded fishing nets and piles of anchor chains with links as thick as my arm. The clang of hammers mixed with bird calls drifted up from the harbor. I stopped at the flagship branch of Samjin, Korea’s most famous purveyor of eomuk —a savory baked patty of seafood kneaded with flour and vegetables. An affordable staple during postwar food shortages and a specialty of Busan, in recent years it has evolved into something considerably more decadent: My pick was wrapped in bacon and served on a skewer, a handy portable breakfast to eat while walking. I cut back toward the docks to Momos, a café, roastery, and museum. Coffee has long been more popular than tea in Korea, and partly because rent is lower in Busan than Seoul, a thriving community of artisan-minded baristas has convened in Yeongdo, reportedly opening more than 200 cafés in under 5.5 square miles; Momos is often considered its epicenter. I chose a custom blend of beans for my latte, then settled into a sling chair to watch the tugboats while breathing in the sea air. I’d been in town less than 12 hours, but already I felt at ease. This place was not always so idyllic. During the Korean War, as the communist army advanced, more than half a million refugees streamed into Busan from throughout the country, doubling its population in a few short years. There was little room in an already crowded, war-ravaged city. People lived where they could, many squatting in the central neighborhood of Nampo-dong. Their story is told through artifacts, photos, film, and dioramas at the Busan Modern History Museum, located about a half-hour walk from Yeongdo in a modernist building first erected by the colonizing Japanese. Poverty bred desperation and crime, but also ingenuity: People survived by selling what they could, especially smuggled foreign goods, either on the street or in makeshift stalls at Gukje Market, a few blocks back toward the water. Gukje Market was founded in 1945 and has continuously operated since then. It currently spans 12 buildings and is one of the largest markets in South Korea. Today, Gukje is among the largest markets in Korea, its warren of pedestrian alleys a kaleidoscope of sights, sounds, and smells. When I visited, tables overflowed with bedding or stuffed animals, with hats, housewares, ceramic figurines. One vendor sold only umbrellas, zillions of them. Another seemed entirely stocked with piggy banks. A stall no larger than a phone booth was packed floor to ceiling with jars of Pond’s cold cream, boxes of black hair dye, and cans of Aqua Net hair spray. There was barely room inside for the elderly proprietor, who sat on a stool facing the wall, her hair in curlers. I crossed into the adjacent Bupyeong Kkangtong Market (kkangtong translates to “tin can,” named for the U.S. Army castoffs once commonly sold there) with its funk of fish, luscious peaches, elaborate braids of garlic, and bins of fermented foods. Older women—sometimes called, not entirely politely, ajummas —served up scallion pancakes, deep-fried shrimp, and tteokbokki (chewy rice cakes simmered in a spicy-sweet chili broth) to customers who perched on low plastic stools at the tables that lined the streets. At a food cart, I pointed to a hotteok , a fried pastry filled with cinnamon, sugar, and chopped nuts. Greasy, sweet ambrosia. Farther along, fortune tellers had set up shop; I peeked into a tent where a pair of teenage girls gripped each other’s hands, eyes wide, while a woman with flowing, red-dyed hair conjured their futures. The market was bigger, more entrenched, but its character hadn’t changed much from the photos in the history museum, making it feel like the present was collapsing into the past at every turn. Was I in 2024 or 1984 or 1954? I stumbled across an entire street devoted to used bookstores. The Strand in New York City claims to hold 18 miles of books in a 55,000-square-foot space; each of these shops seemed to have at least that many jammed into what were basically oversize closets. The aptly named Bosu-dong Book Street is filled with bookstores and dates to the 1950s. It began when refugees from North Korea opened a few stalls. It was hard to believe that any of these vendors exist in the digital age, when their goods could be cleanly purchased with the click of a mouse. I wondered how much longer these places would last and what would be lost when their face-to-face exchanges, their cacophony, and their serendipity disappeared. Things always change, I know. But I was glad to be here before they did. Korean cuisine is often associated with beef: bulgogi or kalbi or the do-it-yourself braziers that leave your hair and skin redolent of smoke. But Busan’s big flex is seafood. Jagalchi, a few blocks from Gukje, is the country’s largest all-seafood market. Just before lunch on my second day, I walked among its dozens of stalls, feeling both awed and slightly despairing over how many creatures were yanked from the ocean each day: fish, shellfish, eels, octopi, sea slugs, things I could name and things I could not, many still alive. Visitors pick what strikes their fancy, then head to the market’s second floor to have it transformed into a meal. I couldn’t eat enough on my own to do the experience justice, so I brought in reinforcements: friends Sae and Alex Wilmer. We’d met in the San Francisco Bay Area, but they now spend much of the year in Busan, where Sae grew up. At a booth near the middle of the market, we asked fishmonger Young-sik Kim for recommendations. He scooped up a king crab, tiger shrimp, geoduck, and an octopus, dumping them into a shallow, plastic basket. “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to a fat, pink, squirmy thing. “A penis fish,” Sae said, grinning. “It’s a kind of ocean worm.” I gestured for one to go in the basket. Through Sae helping to translate, Kim told me that he’d started his career as a chef in Seoul, but the cost of opening a restaurant there was prohibitive, so 18 years ago he returned to Busan, his hometown. “I love it,” he said. “It’s not as crowded as Seoul, it’s more relaxed. And I love the people.” Yeongdo is located on the water; fishmonger Young-sik Kim used to work in Seoul but returned to his hometown of Busan for the improved quality of life. When our basket was brimful, we went upstairs to a room with dozens of tables topped with plastic sheeting. Above them, orange lamps printed with white numbers hung from the ceiling, each indicating a restaurant; ours was 39. You don’t choose your restaurant at Jagalchi, and you don’t choose how your seafood is prepared; it simply arrives. Within seconds of sitting down, we were served sannakji : chopped, raw octopus tentacles doused in sesame oil, still wriggling from long-firing neurons. I popped one into my mouth, where it began to crawl, then clamped down hard on my cheek. Later that evening, I would read that several people die annually eating sannakji, choking when a tentacle adheres to their throat. (“That’s why I told you chew, chew, chew,” Alex said when I relayed that fact. “At least I thought I did.”) The rest of the meal tasted like ocean waves dancing across my tongue. Bitter orange sea squirts with a sweet finish. Velvety grilled abalone and scallops. Rice fried with creamy crab innards. The penis fish was served raw, still moving, along with crunchy sea cucumber. I tried a nibble, dipped in tangy red cho-gochujang sauce. Sae told me that moving to Seoul from Busan sometimes tempts her, but she’d never actually do it. “I can’t live without an ocean nearby,” she said. “And in Busan we have access to the freshest seafood, the most beautiful beaches.” The next morning Sae took me to Songdo, Korea’s first public beach, established in 1913. We’d planned to relax on the shore, but on a whim, bought tickets for a 20-minute cable car ride over the water to Amnam Park, a former military outpost that’s been converted into densely forested trails, coastal observation decks, and picnic areas. The panorama from our glass-bottomed compartment was exhilarating: the golden sand with the mountains beyond; fishing boats tootling below; a boardwalk winding along the shore. On my fourth day, looking for a different perspective, I cabbed up from Yeongdo to Haeundae Beach, in Busan’s north. It called to mind Waikīkī—skyscrapers and nightlife edged by a glorious near-mile of white sand. During my visit in late June the ocean was still cold, the beach not too crowded. I checked in at the Paradise Hotel where my room was smack on the shore, a few floors up. That evening, I had an unobstructed view from my balcony as the sunset turned the sky, the water, and the mirrored buildings along the strand a fluorescent pink. I could easily have spent the following days at the hotel’s saunas and open-air baths, but I had a different destination in mind. Busan is home to the country’s biggest jjimjilbang , or Korean-style bathhouse—Spa Land, a two-story extravaganza of 22 thermal baths, 13 saunas, and multiple relaxation rooms, along with a restaurant and a café. Centers of community as well as repose and wellness, jjimjilbang are essential to Korean culture: Friends go together to unwind, as do families, spending hours or even overnight soaking, steaming, napping, and eating. There is ample time for it all; Spa Land is open from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. After a brief orientation, I stripped and showered in the women’s locker room. I entered a steamy room filled with shallow pools that promised benefits such as relieving neuralgia, improving circulation, detoxification, and shinier hair. I eased into one, then another, then a third, intending to try them all, though I wimped out on the cold plunge. Beyond the slight temperature differences, I couldn’t much tell one from another, though the overall effect was relaxing. After a half hour, I was called for my optional seshin , a full-body scrub delivered by an ajumma wearing the standard jjimjilbang uniform of black lace bra and underwear and wielding her exfoliating mitt like a weapon. I lay on a table, surrendering as she removed my dead skin head to toe, the evidence sluiced off with warm water in silver-gray strips. Fifty minutes later, I tottered out pink and aglow, tenderized as a lesser slab of meat. Spa Land’s saunas each have a theme: The Wave Dream Room uses projection to simulate the bottom of an ocean; the walls in the Pyramid Room are pitched at 52 degrees to “absorb universal energy at maximum.” I changed into the shorts and T-shirt I was given on arrival for the coed areas, then followed the instructions near a pile of hand towels, rolling one into a hat that resembled a pair of ram’s horns. It did absorb sweat, but the real point was play, and I smiled seeing a bunch of adults walking around in “sheep heads.” I took a break from the heat in a plant-filled atrium, dangling my legs in a cooling footbath while enjoying the classic spa snack of a slow-cooked hard-boiled egg. Then I climbed into a hammock chair suspended above the water and fell fast asleep. Traditional decorative Korean dancheong art adorns Beomeosa Temple; stalls in Bupyeong Kkangtong Market serve tteokbokki (chewy rice cakes) and eomuk (fish cakes), a specialty of Busan. On my last morning, my friend Sae offered to show me a quieter side of the city: Beomeosa Temple, built in the 7th century and a city bus ride up the foothills of Mount Geumjeong. In the class of Korea’s most significant temples, it’s also home to a school of “fighting monks,” renowned for their resistance against Japanese invaders in the 16th and early 20th centuries. The parking lot was empty when we arrived, the forest cool and quiet. Walking up a path lined with Japanese maples, wild wisteria, and hydrangeas, I could hear the rhythmic beating of a moktak , a wooden drum that chanting monks use to keep time. The buildings on the temple grounds were a riot of color—covered in dancheong , intricate designs in red, yellow, blue, black, and white. A gathering of worshippers sat cross-legged on the floor of one hall. Behind another building, a different group gestured to us, insisting we share their slices of watermelon, and we did, nodding and smiling our thanks. I made my way up a flight of stairs, then turned to gaze across the mist-shrouded mountain, listening to the moktak and focusing on the rise and fall of my breath. After a few meditative minutes, I rejoined Sae and descended through a bamboo grove, past a vegetable garden, and into a dining hall where volunteers offered us a free lunch of vegan bibimbap: steamed rice topped with fresh and pickled vegetables, edamame, tofu, and a dollop of fiery gochujang. The meal was simple but delectable. We washed our dishes and said our goodbyes; it was time for me to head to the airport. Hours later, as my plane ascended, I looked down at the sandy beaches, the skyscrapers, the green of the hills. I felt a surge of gratitude for Busan, like I had made a new friend. I was already eager to return, to delve deeper into its history, perhaps venture to the islands and forests that lie beyond its urban core. Would I ever make it to Korea’s main megalopolis? Maybe, though now I knew for certain it would be fine if I didn’t. I didn’t need to tick a prescribed box to get a taste of this country’s soul. I felt like I’d found it, right here. Often bypassed in favor of shinier Seoul, the South Korean city of Busan is a destination all its own.
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