Korea: Day 3 Seoul to Busan
This is the day we experienced the new bullet train from Seoul to Busan in the south of the country. It has halved the journey times, so it only takes about two and a half hours to get there. Off we toddled to the super-sleek, uber-modern Seoul station - and here are the pictures I promised.
Also nice to see there were no delays forecasted. (Not like loverly England...)
When you hang around transport hubs, you get to see a lot of young, strapping guys in camoflage uniform strolling about - there's military service here. I wasn't about to go around taking pictures of them as:
a) they are built like bricks. Maybe their boots are very high or something but they're very tall and very broadly built. I can objectively say (after all, I am married), that they are among the best-looking Asian blokes I've ever seen. Perhaps I should have taken those photos after all; and
b) apparently they all learn 2 years worth of taekwondo as part of their military service. No messing about around these boys!
OK, here is a surreptitious picture taken on the sly. The main aim was to take the KFC restaurant, but you can see one of the boys here.
Just to move onto the topic of KFC though - I like the way it calls itself 'Chicken Expert'. At another branch it also had 'REAL FOOD' emblazoned on its front. On the way back to Seoul, yeah we stopped off and had a no. 1 meal - yum!
So, the bullet train then - we descended to the platform and scarpered to the front of the train to take some pics. It looked just like a Eurostar or a TGV train.
Indeed, inside the carriages there was the same layout, same types of seats, even the phishing air-lock doors between carriages was the same. Just a different colour. The journey went very smoothly. The countryside was green hills, valleys with towns and factories, some rice paddy fields... erm, not entirely that interesting. The station at the other end was just as impressive as Seoul.
Busan is a port city - a lot of fishing and container loading/unloading goes on here. There are a lot of hills with small houses packed on the slopes. It's also a very spread out city with an underground system of 2 lines. We decided to pamper ourselves and booked the Marriott Hotel at Haeundae Beach. This beach is supposed to be the busiest and most famous in Korea.
It was nice to stay at the Marriott, but we were right at the end of the tube line which meant very long journeys back and forth to see stuff. Anyhow, Haeundae Beach itself was fine, not busy at all. Fatt felt it had the air of out-of-season Blackpool - but I didn't think so. It still had a busy centre, markets, shops, lots of things were still open. And it is always nice to see and hear waves crashing on the beach. On the other hand, perhaps comparing Busan with Paris, London & New York as the below wall etching does may be a slight exaggeration.
We headed down the beach to Mipo boat pier which was also home to a 'raw fish town' - meaning a couple of stalls and restaurants. We were a bit nervous and embarrassed but we wanted to try the Korean equivalent of sashimi. We kept walking back and forth past this table with two old blokes enjoying their food. It was 4 o'clock - far too early for dinner. Sod it, we thought, and we sat by an outdoor stall, managed to ask a price and for about 15 quid ate a very interesting seafood meal for two.
Various garnishes and sauces came out, beer was provided and a range of seafood tidbits. I have no idea what the orange thing is below - scallop? The red flowery things were too chewy to eat.
And then came the piece-de-resistance: a whole plate full of thin-cut sashimi, accompanied by some quite lurid green and unsubtle tasting wasabi sauce. Verdict? Very nice. Not quite the texture or sublimity of Japanese sashimi but we still enjoyed it.
We took the subway into town - crumbs, it must have taken an hour. Even so, we couldn't justify stuffing our faces again so soon. We decided to meander around Lotte Department Store instead. This is quite an upscale department store but I wanted to see the food section. Indeed, it didn't disappoint. A zillion varieties of kimchi, seaweed, fish, ginseng, fish balls, whatever was on display. Excellent fun whizzing around from counter to counter checking out what they had. Like the crabs below were ginormous!
I'm sure the below seaweed tastes better than it looks:
If you don't fancy the large crab - what about some kimchi mini-crabs?
Ginseng is supposed to very good in Korea, but what do I know? to me they look like some bizarre voodoo vegetables shaped like mini-human beings, ready to be pin-pricked ferociously in some black magic voodoo rite. The fridge vapours add to the effect don't you think?
Gift boxes of food are quite a big thing here as well. Olive oil for example. And, ahem, Spam seems to be a big hit for some reason!
All the food-gazing made us hungry so we first headed for a quick beer at a micro-brewery. We nursed our measly half-litre mugs while the office girls on the next table ordered a massive jug of beer and downed their drinks in a blink of an eye! Gee, these girls know how to drink! Full respect for a nation who likes their after-office tipple. Or barrell. It's probably the only Asian country I've been to where it's completely acceptable for girls to be out necking back their booze.
At last, dinner time. We headed for a place known for 'the quality of its meat' and ordered beef ribs. Here they are below sizzzzzling away. There being two of us, the restaurant insisted we ordered 2 portions of ribs - I don't know why. We couldn't even order 1 beef ribs, 1 bulgogi. Strange. Still, I rate this dinner as being on of my faves of the trip.
Also nice to see there were no delays forecasted. (Not like loverly England...)
When you hang around transport hubs, you get to see a lot of young, strapping guys in camoflage uniform strolling about - there's military service here. I wasn't about to go around taking pictures of them as:
a) they are built like bricks. Maybe their boots are very high or something but they're very tall and very broadly built. I can objectively say (after all, I am married), that they are among the best-looking Asian blokes I've ever seen. Perhaps I should have taken those photos after all; and
b) apparently they all learn 2 years worth of taekwondo as part of their military service. No messing about around these boys!
OK, here is a surreptitious picture taken on the sly. The main aim was to take the KFC restaurant, but you can see one of the boys here.
Just to move onto the topic of KFC though - I like the way it calls itself 'Chicken Expert'. At another branch it also had 'REAL FOOD' emblazoned on its front. On the way back to Seoul, yeah we stopped off and had a no. 1 meal - yum!
So, the bullet train then - we descended to the platform and scarpered to the front of the train to take some pics. It looked just like a Eurostar or a TGV train.
Indeed, inside the carriages there was the same layout, same types of seats, even the phishing air-lock doors between carriages was the same. Just a different colour. The journey went very smoothly. The countryside was green hills, valleys with towns and factories, some rice paddy fields... erm, not entirely that interesting. The station at the other end was just as impressive as Seoul.
Busan is a port city - a lot of fishing and container loading/unloading goes on here. There are a lot of hills with small houses packed on the slopes. It's also a very spread out city with an underground system of 2 lines. We decided to pamper ourselves and booked the Marriott Hotel at Haeundae Beach. This beach is supposed to be the busiest and most famous in Korea.
It was nice to stay at the Marriott, but we were right at the end of the tube line which meant very long journeys back and forth to see stuff. Anyhow, Haeundae Beach itself was fine, not busy at all. Fatt felt it had the air of out-of-season Blackpool - but I didn't think so. It still had a busy centre, markets, shops, lots of things were still open. And it is always nice to see and hear waves crashing on the beach. On the other hand, perhaps comparing Busan with Paris, London & New York as the below wall etching does may be a slight exaggeration.
We headed down the beach to Mipo boat pier which was also home to a 'raw fish town' - meaning a couple of stalls and restaurants. We were a bit nervous and embarrassed but we wanted to try the Korean equivalent of sashimi. We kept walking back and forth past this table with two old blokes enjoying their food. It was 4 o'clock - far too early for dinner. Sod it, we thought, and we sat by an outdoor stall, managed to ask a price and for about 15 quid ate a very interesting seafood meal for two.
Various garnishes and sauces came out, beer was provided and a range of seafood tidbits. I have no idea what the orange thing is below - scallop? The red flowery things were too chewy to eat.
And then came the piece-de-resistance: a whole plate full of thin-cut sashimi, accompanied by some quite lurid green and unsubtle tasting wasabi sauce. Verdict? Very nice. Not quite the texture or sublimity of Japanese sashimi but we still enjoyed it.
We took the subway into town - crumbs, it must have taken an hour. Even so, we couldn't justify stuffing our faces again so soon. We decided to meander around Lotte Department Store instead. This is quite an upscale department store but I wanted to see the food section. Indeed, it didn't disappoint. A zillion varieties of kimchi, seaweed, fish, ginseng, fish balls, whatever was on display. Excellent fun whizzing around from counter to counter checking out what they had. Like the crabs below were ginormous!
I'm sure the below seaweed tastes better than it looks:
If you don't fancy the large crab - what about some kimchi mini-crabs?
Ginseng is supposed to very good in Korea, but what do I know? to me they look like some bizarre voodoo vegetables shaped like mini-human beings, ready to be pin-pricked ferociously in some black magic voodoo rite. The fridge vapours add to the effect don't you think?
Gift boxes of food are quite a big thing here as well. Olive oil for example. And, ahem, Spam seems to be a big hit for some reason!
All the food-gazing made us hungry so we first headed for a quick beer at a micro-brewery. We nursed our measly half-litre mugs while the office girls on the next table ordered a massive jug of beer and downed their drinks in a blink of an eye! Gee, these girls know how to drink! Full respect for a nation who likes their after-office tipple. Or barrell. It's probably the only Asian country I've been to where it's completely acceptable for girls to be out necking back their booze.
At last, dinner time. We headed for a place known for 'the quality of its meat' and ordered beef ribs. Here they are below sizzzzzling away. There being two of us, the restaurant insisted we ordered 2 portions of ribs - I don't know why. We couldn't even order 1 beef ribs, 1 bulgogi. Strange. Still, I rate this dinner as being on of my faves of the trip.
posted by sylv at 3:25 pm
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