24 hours in Busan

We took a high-speed KTX train to Busan, which is a rougher-edged port city (like Osaka is to Tokyo, or Oakland is to San Francisco). This place is known for its amazing seafood, and has a HUGE fish market compared to Seoul's. It was dumping buckets of rain throughout our first day there (we were only there overnight), but thankfully cleared up the next day.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM BUSAN:

• Strolling through the sad-looking Chinatown, which was actually filled with Russians & Russian businesses/bars, which had "American" names like "Cowboy" and "Texas bar". Go figure.
• Had street food & chigae stew lunches at PIFF Square.
• Checked out Jagalchi Fish Market & bought some tasty items.
• Stayed at the rockin Zen Backpackers hostel, which is run by the ubercool June Park and located in the Seomyeon District.
• At June's recommendation, waded thru back alleys in the storming rain to an all-you-can-eat Japanese-style dinner at Dea Rim Tuna (for about $28 each!), which had multiple courses & small dishes and tons of ultra-fresh tuna sashimi (different cuts), eaten Korean-style wrapped in lettuce leaves &/or nori seaweed sheets & doused in sesame-oil or gochujang chili paste. The beondegi made a cameo appearance on our table.
• Spent a sunny morning at Haeundae beach.
• Had a street-food munch lunch in the Seomyeon Street Food Alley, where we were schooled by the vendors on how to correctly double-dip your fish-cake-on-a-stick in the communal sauce. Oh, yay.
• Was stunned by the gorgeousness of the Lotte department store food court (too bad we were full of rice sticks, fish cakes, and mandoo dumplings from the street food alley).
• Back in Seoul that night, we had a "Chicken and Hof" (i.e. Korean fried chicken and beer) dinner with Peter and his coworker, followed by a hilariously epic struggle for the dinner bill between Marco and Peter... guess who won?

Pictures can be found HERE.