Standing Room Only

19112023

Seems the travel has caught up to us, Laura was feeling not great last night, and we went home a little earlier than expected, which I dont begrudge as I was tired too. When waking up Laura was very phlegmy and her voice was gone. Today was planned to be a chill day of travel anyways, we can snooze on the train.

After checking out and leaving our baggage in a locker in the hotel, we finally stopped at a street food vendor on the street we were staying on for hotteok(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotteok). I got a sweet one

, that weas filled with honesy and sesame and pumpkin seeds. The honey inside was approaching fusion it was so hot, and Laura burned her tongue on the bite she took that wasnt just dough, it was so hot I didnt tase much of it, so I will have to try again later, we continued looking for some kind of ginseng miracle cure, and found this little one-hitter ginseng extract liquid.We also walked around a little market that we had actually walked around the last time we were here.

Which had these giraffe scultures on the roof.

We then headed to the coffeeshop we had been to twice before, but for fancy tea rather than cheap coffee. I got an omija and chamomile tea, and Laura got a grapefruit and honey earl grey. They were delicious, and a great way to chase the ginseng extract, because that stuff tasted like root water...

We wandered around a Buddhist temple that was across the street from our hotel.

We then went back to the hotel to claim our stuff and hopped the subway to the train station.

The Seoul (and later the Busan) trainstation was big, though not as mall-like as the train stations in Japan, it felt very much like a transient place, and not a desitnation for activities. The kiosks didnt take foreign cards so we had to wait in line for our ticket. At the front of the line, the ticketagent said they have no seats on trains, but you can still book tickets, and the next train with seats is at 22:42. So we got last minute standing room only tickets. At the ends of most cars they have jumpseats, and a loitering area, presumably for this very reason. Poking around online it also seems its not uncommon for people to sit in empty seats until the ticketed passenger boards at a later stop.

While it was a literal pain in the ass to not have a seat, we did end up communicating (speaking would be a generous descriptor) with a middle aged guy about how long we were in Seoul and where we were from, his son is in Connecticut, then another set of ladies got on and turned out, one of them spoke English, so we translated through her, and she was actually living in Renton, which is pretty funny.

When the train finally disgorged us in Busan we felt the very different vibe from Seoul. It is a little bit rougher, way more people smoking cigarettes, young people seemed to make up a larger portion of the population. We are staying at an allgedly 5-star hotel (it feels like a well done 4 star hotel, but I dont have much 5 star experience, so what do I know) that is owned by Lotte, the company that also owns malls and hypermarkets all over Asia. The mall that it is attached to is an ultra-high end mall, with all of the designer brands, and a curated food hall with brightly lit and very clean stalls. We ultimately did not eat here, as it felt too sterile. We went across the main street to what on my Kakao Maps is labeled as "Food Alley" In the Seomyeon area. Laura found a a noodle spot to try that was right there amongst all the restaurants and street food stalls, and bars. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Songjeong+3(sam)+dae+Gukbap/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x3568eb6fd0fbf783:0xe7a22678687305a5!8m2!3d35.1556069!4d129.0584849!16s%2Fg%2F1tt0n_yh?entry=ttu the place claims to be open 24 hours, and it has now been our agreed upon "final option" for when we are too hungry to make a decision. I got the Sundaeguk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundae_(sausage)) which is a blood sausage soup, the blood sausage is very light on the blood, there is a lot of glass noodle filler in there, but it keeps it light to go with the very light pork broth. Laura got the soup with pork slices. Same broth, just different meat.

We continued walking around the entertainment area until I realized I was still very hungry, so we stopped at another beer and chicken spot

This was a soy and black garlic sauce, that had a bite, but wasnt scary spicy, they also had a good selection of quality beers, to my surprise they had an Amber Lager that was definetly on par with a Riverwest Stein. We then went into the mall looking for more Gundam kits, and a travel size face cleanser. The gundam base had the same kit I saw at the other one in Seoul, but because I have already decided to inconvinience myself with 2 kits, Ill get a third...

We went home via a 7-11 grabbed some cough drops and ice cream (which waking up the next morning we totally forgot to eat...).